In the heat of the night
by Bond.Jane
Summary: A collection of one shots- mostly M rated- so, if you're under 18, just say No and walk away- Inspired by some of my favorite songs- NOT SONG FICS! If you don't know the song, check out the link in my profile. "Hush little baby" now added.
1. Dream a little dream of me

DREAM A LITTLE DREAM OF ME

**DREAM A LITTLE DREAM OF ME**

Stars shining bright above you

Night breezes seem to whisper "I love you"

Birds singin' in the sycamore tree

Dream a little dream of me

Say nighty-night and kiss me

Just hold me tight and tell me you'll miss me

While I'm alone and blue as can be

Dream a little dream of me

Stars fading but I linger on dear

Still craving your kiss

I'm longing to linger till dawn dear

Just saying this

Sweet dreams till sunbeams find you

Sweet dreams that leave all worries behind you

But in your dreams whatever they be

Dream a little dream of me

*********************************************************************************

There she was again, walking along the surf, her hair billowing in the night breeze, her eyes blue stars calling me to her. Her dress told tales of a body naked underneath it. I could see the shape of her full breasts, the roundness of her hips and the shape of her long legs. Whether she liked it or not, it was a body made for babies- my babies- and me.

Waves washing upon the shore made the indiscrete dress more and more transparent, revealing that little triangle that I'd come to think as my own little Bermuda triangle. I wanted to get lost in there. I would get lost in there. Wasn't she the one who said that everything happened eventually? I guess she was right too. But while she attributes it to the law of probabilities, I like to think that _the Man upstairs_ is responsible. I mean, I've been a good boy, Lord. I've done the right thing by her for four long years. Four years, Lord, where she tormented me with little touches and long words, where she taunted be and flaunted lesser men in front of me. Four years where I trailed behind her just to smell that perfume of hers, four years where the only part of her that belonged to me was that little curve on the small of her back. God, I'm so jealous of the small of her back!

I thought she couldn't see me. She usually doesn't. I'm that careful! She thinks she can take care of herself. In my head I know she's almost right. But in my heart… well, my heart doesn't give a toss about what my head thinks. My heart wants to make sure she got home ok, that her date isn't an abusive asshole, that she eats properly, that she doesn't worry about what cannot be helped.

So, here I am. Not hiding, no, not really hiding. Just not in plain sight, making sure she's safe. My little mermaid. She walks towards me, the moonlight playing games of shadows in her body. She comes closer and my heart thumps in recognition of her scent, greeting her. This heart of mine, the traitor, it's going to denounce me to her. It's a sound so overwhelming it draws out even the crushing of the waves on the soft sand.

She stops by the long chair I' m lounging on and looks me in the eye- immobilizing me. I can't move, that's the hold she's got on me.

"Booth" and the top button of her white dress pops open. My throat works against me and constricts my breathing.

"Bones" I need a brilliant excuse for being here. None is forthcoming.

"Don't call me that!" But she said it with a smile. The second button popped open. My heart races wildly.

"Temperance" The reflection of the moon on her skin is pure silver.

"That's better" And the third button opens. My whole body conspires against me.

"What are you doing out at this time of night?" _Moronic question, Seel!_

"Hoping you'd come" The fourth button opens. _Oh, just say something smart, for heaven's sake!_

"Nice dress!" _Great! My brain took a leave of absence! Brilliant, Seel! _Fifth button opens revealing the treasure trove.

"Yes, I thought you'd like it!" And she shrugs it off, letting it slide down. It pools at her feet. I concentrate on the soggy pool of white. I cannot look at her or I'll be doomed.

"Temperance" is it a request? Or a beg for mercy? Maybe a calling.

"Look at me, Booth!" God, her voice is smoother than good whiskey. I know that if I look at her, I'm lost. But it's a battle of wills I don't care to win. I'd lose to much either way. I look up. She's smiling that smile of hers. That smile she smiles when she's made up her mind and is just waiting for me to catch up.

My body rebels against the command of my brain. My manhood stands and salutes her happily.

She takes one final step towards me. No more cool summer night air between us. Now it's just hot furnace air of a passion, a wanting, a desire, a destiny about to be fulfilled. Somehow, my clothes come off easily. She straddles me and looking me straight in the eyes, tells me _'Tonight you're mine'_ I sigh happy as she descends on me. My eyes are arrested in hers, open in slight surprise. I tell her yes, tonight I'm hers. She slides one more inch and tells me _'All mine'_. God, her eyes shine like they have a light of their own. One more inch, she buries me in the tightness of her body. _'No more lines'_ I shake my head.

"No more lines" I concede. I gain one more inch.

"No one else" _Who else could there be, Temperance? We are the centre!_ I promise 'No one else' She takes all of me in.

"No regrets"

"No Temperance, none." My eyes are still on hers, the blue in them is the darkest shade I've ever seen. So This is Temperance with a man inside her.

"No", she tells me. "This is me with you inside." And I swear, I've never seen anything so beautiful in my whole life.

"Temperance" and the summer breeze carries her name, spreading the sweetness. She runs her hand down my face, sliding it up again. I know she likes the feel of my insipient beard. Her palm travels up an down. Her body rocks back and forth, letting me fill her. I can feel myself expanding inside and all around her. I want to be only thing she's conscious off. I want to mark myself onto her, brand her with my scent, with my touch. I carry off the chair and lay her down on the edge of the surf. I want to see all of her, burn that image in my retina. I want to know her body like my own hands, so I study her. But I'm hers, all hers. And she commands me:  
"I want you inside me!" I lay atop her and my breath catches when I enter her. I kiss her as I progress from her belly button to the cove on her neck. If I have to die, my God, let me take my final resting place in that cove on her neck. She locks her legs around me and urges me on, pulls me further inside her. My body knows these movements by heart. My legs between hers push forward, the muscles in my navel propel me, my lungs breathe in air to keep me alive- all it's taken care of. Only my heart needs reassurance.

The waves around us cool our bodies, cradle and rock us in the rhythm, of love. The smell of her is mixed with the smell of summer, of beach and ocean. The taste of her is the sweetness of her skin and the salt I taste from her breast.

She calls out my name as she quakes around me. My senses are full of Temperance- her taste, her smell, her touch, her face, my name on her lips. _'Booth'_ like a whisper or a sigh.

"I'm yours, Temperance. All yours." She opens her eyes. There is still a fog of desire in them.

Love is a sixth sense. So when I see love in her eyes, when she says it out loud _'I love you'_ my heart races its last few yards and my body explodes inside her, filling her with me. Marking her as mine.

But the starry night is already dissolving into morning, the surf morphing into white linen sheets and she's already evaporating from my embrace.

I sit in bed, sweaty, breathless, lonely and wet. Third time this week. Third change of clothes and linen. Third sleepless night. I punch the pillow and wonder if she's dreaming of me.

Page 3 of 3


	2. You give me fever

Never know how much I love you

Never know how much I love you  
Never know how much I care  
When you put your arms around me  
I give you fever that's so hard to bare

You give me fever  
When you kiss me  
Fever when you hold me tight  
Fever  
In the morning  
Fever all through the night

(…)  
You give me fever  
When you kiss me  
Fever when you hold me tight  
Fever  
In the morning  
Fever all through the night

(…)  
But what a lovely way to burn

*********************************************************************************

I know I'm dreaming because around me everything is pasty. The colours only run the spectre from black to white with all the greys in between. This is a recurrent dream so I go through the motions. I light a long slim cigarette assembled on a long black cigarette holder. The first flash of light is the embers if my cigarette. I sit at my customary table in the darkest corner of the dingiest blues joint in DC. The long black silk gloves that reach just over my elbow shine their pasty black in the sparse low hanging light. I pull another drag on my cigarette. The smoke fills my lungs and relaxes me.

He'll be here tonight. He's always here. The man with warm brown eyes and the holstered gun on his left hand side and the badge hanging like a talisman against evil in his shirt pocket. There is kindness when he smiles at me. But that's not all there is. He can't take his eyes away from me, from my cleavage. Men are easy to play, easy marks all of them. Specially the ones that come to places like this. Not this guy. He's different. He actually listens when I sing. He's polite and he tips well. I see him come in. He knows I'm sitting here, but he takes is usual place- to the left of the stage, first row table. He signals for the bartender. Whiskey- straight. None of that fancy on the rocks stuff. I tip back my glass of bourbon that he'll pick up the tab for, keeping my eyes on him. He smiles. We've been at this dance for the longest time. He knows I want him. But he keeps his distance. Told me once people he's close to tend to die. So he's trying to protect me. Go figure!

The sleazy owner of this sleazy joint walks on stage and announces me: _Give it up, Ladies and Gentlemen for the lovely Roxie!_ No one cares. No one comes here for my vocal talents. Except perhaps him. There's applause from or two people but the chatting, the smoking and the drinking continue. I set up from my table, fix my hair one last time and walk onto the stage. The owner walks out not without slapping my ass in what, I'm sure, he considers a playful manner. No matter, I'll get him later for this. No one touches me like this and lives to tell the tale.

The band- if you can call a drunk piano man and a moody saxophone player a band- hit the first notes of _Fever_. I look at Special Agent Sugar dead in the eyes and run my hands down the length of my torso and hips to smooth my blood red floor length dress. I sing looking him in the eyes. I want him to know I'm singing for him, that I want him.

_Never know how much I love you  
Never know how much I care  
When you put your arms around me  
I give you fever that's so hard to bare_

I know what he sees when he looks at me: the innocent blue eyes, the red lipstick like a mark of sin, the red dress, a sign of doom. But mostly, he sees the real me. The one that had no choice but to be here.

_You give me fever  
When you kiss me  
Fever when you hold me tight_

I know he wants me. I know his hands hitch to touch me, to make me his. I know he fights it. But in this place full of people, he's the one who really sees me- not just the gimmicks and the dress. He knows me.

******

I know this is a dream. Why else would I be in a bad B movie from the 40s? That's why I do not resist. I take the microphone and walk towards him

_Fever  
I'm a fire  
Fever yeah I burn for you_

I lean towards him and I kiss him. I've been wanting to kiss him for a life time. I don't care if others think it's an act. He knows it's not. His lips are warm and soft. There is a slight taste of whiskey but the burning is all him, the sudden heat between my legs is all his doing. He pushes me gently to the side, finishes his drink like salvation is at the end of the glass and tells me _Hello, Toots. Been wanting you for such a long time_. It surprises me because I've standing just here, wanting him. He looks deep inside my eyes and the whole room fades into nothingness. A spot light clicks on and silences the background chatter. We are bathed by the intense and direct light. Nothing else exists in the world but us. He puts his hands on my waist and lifts me to sit on the pasty clothed table. He moves into me, holding me in place by my hips and crushes his lips against mine. There is such sweetness in the kiss. I've always known this would be how Special Agent Sugar would kiss. His hands take time in getting to know my body. But a hand pulls me way violently from him. I'm tossed unceremoniously on the floor. I can't see who it is, no matter how many times I have this dream. The spotlight blinds me. But Booth is already on his feet and he makes a fist and lunges forward hitting whoever it was squarely in the face. A body tumbles heavily on the floor, melting into the shadows. He stretches his hand to help me up. _Are you Ok, Toots?_ I tell him that I've been better. He pulls me into his strong arms and carries me out of that joint into the fresh night air.

I'm cold outside. There's a heavy fog in the air. He covers my shoulders with his mac, still warm from his body. _That dress sure doesn't cover much, Toots! _ I smile at him, thankful. We look ahead down the street, unsure what to do. The dark is broken only by sparsely placed street lamps that shed little pools of yellow light. I hook my arm in his.

"My place is just around the corner" So he puts his hand on the small of my back and walks me to my grubby old door. He kisses my forehead goodnight but I'll be damned if this is how it's ending tonight. I shift slightly and press my lips against his. _Toots, we shouldn't._ He tries to break the kiss, but this time, I won't let him. I'm only a little thing next to him, but he lets me press him against the wall. I ran my hands down his body, so firm and warm under the shirt. It just makes me want him that much more. He could have pushed me away at any moment. I'm strong and I can stand my own ground but I'm no threat to him. I get closer and closer and I whisper in his ear.

"I want you tonight." His mac slides to the floor of my staircase. His hands move into my shoulders and his fingers caress my skin. _You don't understand… what if I hurt you? What if you get hurt because of me? I'm not good for you…_ My heart tightens when he says that. If only he knew how many creeps had their dirty hands all over me, how many have hurt me. I'm stronger than he thinks. Whatever he thinks can happen to me, I've had worse. For him, I'll deal with it. But for now, I just want to feel him on me. I want him to push away the loneliness. I need his warmth to fell alive again. I think there may be tears in my eyes, because when I ask him to love me, he gives up the struggle. He pushes me against the wall, pressing me there with his body alive with desire. His hands are feverishly roaming up and down my body like he's on recognisance mission. I want to do the same, but I know that he needs this now, he needs to control the situation. He pulls my dress up and his hands dive inside me without any warning. It shakes me to the core. My breath hitches with the need to touch him, to map him out.

What a sight we must be, in a dingy and dark corridor illuminated with the borrowed light from the street. I sigh his name _Booth_. He pulls me up against the wall. I hold on to him. I'm sinking into him. My underwear gives way to his expert fingers and he pushes himself into me. God, I've waited for this since the first time he walked into that cursed place. He stays still for a little while. I know he's giving me time to accommodate him and I'm thankful for the tenderness of the gesture. So many would just plunge in and do their thing. I run my hand through his hair, his 5 o'clock beard and kiss him again and again. It seems I can't get enough of him. He puts his hand under my ass to push me up and rocks back and forth inside me. My blood boils in the heat of his touch and I demand more and more and more. _Temperance_ he whispers. He knows my real name. It drives me over the edge unexpectedly. The world snaps back into Technicolor with that rush of blood through my whole body. It makes me want to cry. It was never this good with anyone else. He holds my face in his hand and looks into my eyes. He kisses me again and again. He pushes into me twice more. He hides his face in my neck when I feel him coming. Oh God! I need to hold on to him. I run my hands through his back with despair because I don't ever want to let him go, I don't ever want another feeling in my skin that it's not him.

************

It's a recurrent dream, but every time the burning feels brand new. And every morning after I need to train myself not to act on that residual fever, not to sink into his arms. To stay aloof and indifferent. To stay, for his sake, unreachable. _  
_

Page 4 of 4


	3. In the mood for love

In the mood for love

I'm in the mood for love  
Simply because you're near me  
Funny, but when you're near me  
I'm in the mood for love

Heaven is in your eyes  
Bright as the stars we're under  
Oh, is it any wonder?  
I'm in the mood for love

Why stop to think of whether  
This little dream might fade?  
Let's put our hearts together  
Now we are one, I'm not afraid

If there's a cloud above  
If it should rain, we'll let it  
But, for tonight, forget it  
I'm in the mood for love

It was the pain that woke me up. A dull throbbing the took the whole of my body, annoying like a little yapping Chihuahua that just won't quit. It quickly progressed to a pit-bull kind of pain, the kind that rips at your flesh, that pulls it way from your bones. The nausea takes over me. I vomit again, my body working against me- the muscular contractions cannot be stopped. I can't breathe. _I can't breathe!_ There is nothing but nothingness.

The air comes again. My lungs burn, but I take the air in- the foul stench of my own shit and vomit. But I'm alive. Alone in the absolute darkness, cold, broken and sick. But alive. How long has it been since I was put in this place? Can't tell. But I'm hungry and thirsty. So thirsty… _The desert stretches in front of me, miles and miles of golden sand. It's hot sand. I bask in the warmth for a little while- just until it becomes too overwhelming. It's too hot now. I try t take off my clothes_, but there's nothing to take off. Sick bastard took them from me. I know why he did it- because it debases me. Because I'll be found in this damp hole with no dignity. _If only the heat wasn't so intense._ I need to concentrate. I'm not ready yet. I'm not yet ready to die, Bones! BONES! I call her name. I call out to her. BONES! She'll find me. If only I could hear my own voice. M head spins and spins. The nausea again. My stomach heaves again, straining to release my body of the drugs I was given. But I can't breathe… _I can't breathe!_

The annoying Chihuahua is back. I try to breathe in, to forget about my own stench. I try to be the hero the medals say I am. I need to concentrate, to stay alive long enough for her to find me. Faith. Faith will keep me alive. _But I'm not alone in this hole. The dead come to visit. It's crowded here with so many faces._ So many faces to atone for, my God. They make my head spin. The pit- bull is back, tearing at my heart._ I try to tell them that I had no choice. It's not my fault._ _God, if only I could see some light! I try telling them that with every single shot, a part of me died as well. Why would they care? They come closer. The sense me weak. _My head is throbbing; my bones feel like their dissolving in agony. _So they come closer, blood still fresh dripping from them. "You're not here" I yell at them. I try pushing them away. But what do ghosts have to loose? What do they fear but oblivion? _I close my eyes. I don't want to see them anymore. But they're inside my head, their faces, their voices, their screaming, like a choir of doom._ I feel their fleshless fingers clawing at me. _They're not real. It's all the drugs that sick bastard gave me. I try harder to concentrate. I need a compass. I need control. I need to know where I am. I need to find the North. I need some other sound that is not inside my head. I try singing. Singing is good. I try "My way". But as the words roll out of my tongue I realize it's a lie. I never did anything my way. I was never more than a pawn. A pawn with a riffle that killed _à la carte._ No, I did nothing my way.

I try again. Words form in my mind, slowly.

_I'm in the mood for love_

I struggle to find the tone of the music. I rehearse it, try again.

_I'm in the mood for love_

_Simply because you're near me._

I try it out loud. It's a sound nothing like my voice. It hits the boundaries of darkness and reverberates inside my head. It gives me the first notion of the size of this hell hole. Small, but big enough that I get lost when I try to cross it. It takes me back to my mum's kitchen, a summer night, windows open to the garden._ I breathe in the fresh air_.

_Funny but when you're near me_

_I'm in the mood for love_

My voice sounds strange to my ears. It sounds ridiculous. Here I am, naked, dirty and half broken. I should be praying, not singing.

_Hail Mary full of grace… _What is it that comes next?

_Heaven is in your eyes_

No, that's Bones. Bones has heaven in her eyes. My Bones. Gotta stay alive until she gets me. She'll get me out of here. If only I wasn't so cold, I only this place wasn't so dark. I curl up trying to stay warm. Around me there is only cold metal. _And the faces of the dead. Every single one of my kills. People are not flies on the wall. You can't pull the trigger and forget their faces. "Stop" I tell them. "Go away", but they sneer at me and grow, and grow around me. They want to pull me into hell with them. Men don't die at the hands of justice. They die at the hands of other men. I was the executioner in the name of the law of the jungle. Was my job made any worthier by the word of some general who tells me there is no other way, that it is a just killing? The hands that pull me to hell don't think so._ I can't breathe. I need a reference point. I need my centre. _We are the centre and the centre must hold. _Bones. Bones is my compass in the cold and dark. She'll find me.

_Heaven is in your eyes_

_Bright as the stars we're under_

_Oh is it any wonder_

_I'm in the mood for love_

Her eyes are my compass in the dark. I should be praying, not singing. But every attempt at Hail Mary, it's Bones at the altar, looking down on me. I kneel on the floor. "_Holy mother, deliver us from evil". But it's Bones under the white veil, Bones with her heart bleeding_. My Bones. Who's going to take care of you? The dark becomes darker and the ghosts come back. I sing louder and louder.

_Why stop to think of whether  
This little dream might fade?  
Let's put our hearts together  
Now we are one, I'm not afraid_

_  
_No, I'm not afraid. My Bones will find me. We are the centre. We are one. "Hail Mary full of grace" The Virgin has blue eyes. And tells me "Don't stop singing, Booth. Sing louder. But I can't breathe. I'm just so sleepy. And the pit-bull is at me again. It doesn't want to stop. If I knew she'd be ok… it would be just so easy to fall asleep. "Sing louder Booth" "Hail Mary full of grace" "Sing louder, Booth, I'm coming" "Salve, Regina, Mater misericordiae, vita, dulcedo, et spes nostra, salve." It's probably a sin, Holy Mother, that you always have Bones blues eyes. The Virgin Smiles her mona lisa smile. And tells me to sing louder.

_I'm in the mood for love  
Simply because you're near me_

But I just can't breathe. It all becomes hazy. When the ray of light blinds me, I realise that the Virgin is not angry and that she came to get me. So this is how it ends… I'm so sorry, Bones!

*********

Outside the metal vault, Temperance Brennan fought for a way in. There was no way of knowing what she'd find inside. Booth had been missing for nine days. Nines days in which she realised that hell was not a religious concept but a reality. The reality of not knowing, of being powerless. She'd fought every single one of the nine days, of the 216 hours, harrassed, threatened, bribed… but she'd found the metal vault. And she'd heard him screaming in pain, begging people she knew where not there to leave him alone, praying. The she'd heard the singing. She wanted to digg through the metal with her bare fingers. Then the singing had stopped as had the praying and the screaming. She'd begged him over and over "Sing louder, Booth" When a hole big enough for her was finally cut open, she lowered herself inside. The sun and fresh air from outside contrasted vividly with the dark dampness and the stench of human misery inside. She found him well before her eyes got accustomed to the darkness.

She pulled him to her arms, the addrenaline in her blood giving her the strength to lift him on her own. His body was limp and cold and imobile. She rocked him in her arms, calling his name amid tears and sobs. To the agents pouring in, it was an unfogettable vision of the Pietá: the woman sitting on the floor with the man's broken body in her arms, a single shaft of light illuminating them both.

"God dam it, Booth, I told you to keep singing." Brennan kept repeating, rubbing his arms and torso, trying to return heat to his body.

"Please, God" She said looking thought the opening on the metal.

Agents were starting to react and approached her, unsure what to do. She glared at them, a single movement of the eyes keeping them at bay.

"Booth, don't you do this to me again, you hear me! I won't let you!" She kept rubbing till his skin was raw.

**********

The Chihuahua woke me up again. But this time I felt warmer.

"God dam it, Booth, I told you to sing louder". I opened my eyes. The light was still there. The Virgin with the blue eyes was calling me. I try to obey the comand, but the song is fuzzy in my head.

_I'm in the mood for love_

And the Virgin is crying fat tears that rain down on my face and warm me up.

"C'mon, Booth! C'mon!" My Bones. There's only one coherent thought in my mind. My Bones found me. I'd recognise the scent of her skin anywhere.

_I'm in the mood for love  
Simply because you're near me  
_

Page 5 of 5


	4. Bye Bye Blackbird

Bye Bye Blackbird

**Bye Bye Blackbird**

Pack up all my care and woe,  
Here I go,  
Singing low,  
Bye bye blackbird,  
Where somebody waits for me,  
Sugar's sweet, so is she,  
Bye bye  
Blackbird!

No one here can love or understand me,  
Oh, what hard luck stories they all hand me,  
Make my bed and light the light,  
I'll be home late tonight,  
Blackbird bye bye.

Pack up all my care and woe,  
Here I go,  
Singing low,  
Bye bye, bye bye blackbird.  
Where somebody waits for me,  
Sugar's sweet, so is she,  
Bye bye, bye bye blackbird.

Make my bed and light the light,  
I'll be home late tonight,  
Leave you bird jet in the sky  
Toodle oo!  
Farewell!  
Bye bye!

Blackbird  
We'll take the flying little blackbird bye!

*************************************

_Congratulations, Dr Brennan. You have operated a miracle in escaping the last time. Because I have a sense of humour, I've determined that, this time, your rather attractive "partner" should find himself buried alive. Because I so enjoy your work, you'll have 8 days- 195 hours, give or take, to find him alive. I stress the give or take part, though I'm more inclined for the take. I will have my own private fun with him in the interim. Do you know that sense deprivation wrecks havoc in the mind?_

_Have fun in your hunt. And tell Dr Hodgins that his reward for escaping is the knowing that none of his money will buy your "friend" any time. _

_This is entertainment, not business._

_Yours sincerely_

_The Gravedigger (colourful name, don't you think?)_

It took me nine days, 219 hours, 13140 minutes to find him. Nine sleepless days, 219 empty hours, 13140 minutes of pure, unadulterated fear and near helplessness. I was left with no leads, nowhere to go from that piece of paper. I could find absolutely no thread to tug at and pull. For the first precious minutes I could only think that Booth would find something to do immediately. I was rooted to the floor, feeling nauseous. I could see no way forward. And because time is not a streamline, no matter what quantum physics says, I had no way to go back and change the moment I left him alone.

I was mean. I was abusive, sullen, surly and snappish. They all thought I couldn't hear them talking behind my back. I'm not oblivious to others. But I chose to ignore. Booth had no time for me to play nice.

At the lab, no one slept during those nine days. My squints. I need to tell them I understand what they did. Why they did it. They did it because we're family. I need to tell them I'm grateful.

Now, I'm running on adrenaline. I can't stop the shaking of my limbs or the buzzing in my ears. For sometime after we found him, I couldn't stop the tears. I felt so stupid, crying in front of so many people. But standing there, in that hellish hole, holding him naked, cold and broken in my arms, I just couldn't muster the energy to pretend anymore. I couldn't compartmentalize. I couldn't rationalize. I couldn't minimize the loss of him. I was crushed between the utter loneliness of a world without him in it and the anger at what he'd been through because I hadn't paid attention. The stench of those 13140 minutes of loneliness, of sense deprivation, of torture and horror is still with me. I think it will be with me forever. The almost inhuman sounds of his screaming are like a soundtrack to my own despair. His silence as we hacked at that metal Golgotha reverberates in my head, makes it throb. If I had to explain it to someone, I'd have said that the weight of the world had fallen on my shoulders the moment he stopped singing that silly little song. My head is still screaming on a loop _Sing louder, Booth!_

He's alive. I keep on telling myself he's alive. But I'm running on adrenaline. I can't jut switch off and calm down. I want to bang my head against a wall for leaving him there alone long enough for this to happen. For being so self involved that I just left him there in that incredible tux. No matter how much I'd have to fight myself, I should have stayed there.

I just can't stop moving. It feels like my skin is the only thing keeping me whole. My particles are volatile. I need to expand energy. Under so many sympathetic eyes, I complete paperwork. I go through evidence. I can't just sit in a waiting room. I can't stand a repeat of last time. And I can't stand still. My throat wants to shout out loud. Tears burn my eyes again, my throat, my heart. What would I do if he'd died? There's nothing more to do here, no more papers to fill in, no more excuses to look at evidence. And I'm still shaking.

When I get to the white waiting room, full of white faces, I know I'll break down if I stay there. There will be time for the thank yous. I'll make sure of that. Just not now. I'm ushered into the room.

********

The room is dimly lit and silent. He's still naked, but he's been washed and tended to. If only it had been the rational thing to do, I'd have done it myself. He's hooked to lines of fluids and monitors beeping his heart rhythm that I couldn't feel when I held him. The effects of the hallucinogenics are wearing off, his been hydrated and he looks comfortable. The pain seems to have gone way. I sigh deeply. The relief washing over me is an overwhelming physical sensation. Parker walks over to me and takes me by the hand to sit by the bed. I'm not entirely sure I deserve to be here. But I want to stay. I need to stay here. Parker takes his seat on the bed and Booth put his head in boy's lap. Parker runs his fingers through his hair, soothing him. Booth takes my hand and tells me he missed me. And then I just can't stop the tears. Parker seems so grown up today. I feel warmer than I've ever been, just sitting here in this uncomfortable chair in an hospital room. The innocence of childhood soothing away the dregs of these 13140 minutes, 219 hours, nine days. His childish little voice lullabying his dad to sleep:

_Pack up all my care and woe,  
Here I go,  
Singing low,  
Bye bye, bye bye blackbird.  
Where somebody waits for me,  
Sugar's sweet, so is she,  
Bye bye, bye bye blackbird._

Make my bed and light the light,  
I'll be home late tonight,  
Leave you bird jet in the sky  
Toodle oo!  
Farewell!  
Bye bye!  


I think I fell asleep. The little voice chased away the adrenaline, the fears and the guilt. There was just Booth's hand in mine and Parker's hand running through my hair. Life was good again.

Page 3 of 3


	5. Smile

**Smile**

Smile though your heart is aching  
Smile even though its breaking  
When there are clouds in the sky, you'll get by  
If you smile through your fear and sorrow  
Smile and maybe tomorrow  
You'll see the sun come shining through for you

Light up your face with gladness  
Hide every trace of sadness  
Although a tear may be ever so near  
That's the time you must keep on trying  
Smile, what's the use of crying?  
You'll find that life is still worthwhile  
If you just smile

*********************************************************************************

I stood there watching her watching me. I plastered my usual affable smile on my face, cracked a joke, deflected her penetrating eyes. I wear my smile like a shield.

She walked away in the arms of some man. She seems happy. I saw her studying my face waiting for a sing of recognition, a hint of something that I cannot give her. Maybe that's just wishful thinking. She never made a single move in my direction. Save for the kiss under the mistletoe, that is, we never touched in that way. I'm plagued by the memories of that kiss. Granted, she caught me by surprise, but she got under my skin. Not to jump her was all I could do at that moment as the sweet mint on her breath, the warm softness of her lips, the feel of her tong playing with mine- like a playground tease- made me loose track of time. Hell, even her gum that somehow ended up in my mouth is a good memory that pops into my mind in the most awkward of moments. Mostly when I'm distracted. And mostly, it's a welcome memory. Far, far better than the faces of the dead that used to haunt me. Now, when I wake up sweaty in the middle of the night, I'm sweaty from the love making that only happens in my dreams- not from running from old demons. She walked into my life uninvited, unwelcome, but she pushed and tugged until she created her own space, her own set of rules. And she's been pushing away at heartbreak and guilt without even knowing it. Testing as she may be, from where I'm standing, she sounds pretty much like a blessing in disguise.

***********

I hooked my arm around some faceless guy and walked away. I had hoped for something I couldn't quite define- a word, a request, a gesture… maybe a plea to stay. But all he did was smile. The smile of a big brother watching out for me, cracked a private joke that only we understand. I'd hoped against every rational thought that he'd reach his arm to mine and pulled me away. I've been hoping for it ever since that Christmas and the mistletoe kiss. God, how my heart was pounding. The smell of his aftershave took residence in my amygdale. The warmth of his lips on mine still burns when we forget who we are to each other and just stare at each. I rediscovered my smile when he walked into my organized and clinical existence and slowly mixed my method with intuition. How would you define this racing of my heart, this doing the right thing because he needs it so in his quest for order? Isn't it funny that I'm the scientist but he's the one who cannot live in chaos? So I smile my sad clown smile. I've always been good at blank expressions that hold walls in place, but for him, a smile is required. He needs to walk away every night knowing that I'm Ok. For him I can pretend. So I smile.

**********

I lie awake all night. I've had my dinner, brushed my teeth, said my prayers. My mum taught me well. But there's no rest for the wicked. I lie sleepless as I think of the hands that run through her body now. I punish myself with thoughts of kisses trailing down her spine and diving into the soft centre of her body. Somebody else is tasting her essence, revelling in her sweetness. And, as usual, ignoring her heart.

I lie awake all night.

**********

I lie awake all night. There is a soft breathing sound next to me that should be comforting. Well trained hands have explored my body and offered release for pent up desires. My body has been satisfied. But, though there is human warmth lying next to me, I feel cold. There are no blankets to ward off this cold in my heart. I wander what he's doing. He said he does alright. With all that he is, I have no doubt. Why do I feel this tightening around my heart whenever I imagine his hands on somebody else's body?

I lie awake all night.

**********

I wake up, I get dressed, brush my teeth pick up her favourite coffee and knock on her door. It's second nature to me now. I give her her cup and smile.

I wear my smile like a shield.

**********

I wake up, brush my teeth, my hair and get dressed. Kick the guy out of my bed and get ready for him. It's second nature to me now. When he walks in, I feel embarrassed about the guy still in my house, but I smile. I wear my smile like a clown.

Page 3 of 3


	6. Blue Moon

**Author's note: I realize some- maybe many, reading these stories will not imediatly remember the music, that the poem will not mean much in terms of getting the music to play in your mind. So, I have created a page with videos of the songs. You can check it out via my profile. Just remember to cme back and read the story. And if it strickes your fancy, please leave a reply.**

**Jane  
**

**Blue Moon**

Blue moon  
You saw me standing alone  
Without a dream in my heart  
Without a love of my own  
Blue moon  
You know just what I was there for  
You heard me saying a prayer for  
Someone I really could care for

And then there suddenly appeared before me  
The only one my arms will hold  
I heard somebody whisper please adore me  
And when I looked to the moon it turned to gold

Blue moon  
Now Im no longer alone  
Without a dream in my heart  
Without a love of my own.

****************

I always knew there was line between us, even before he verbalized it. Sometimes, a line is decorative. Others, an obstacle to overcome. But sometimes it's a necessity. Angela told me to buy a ride on the Booth Express. Even then something told me I'd spoil everything if I did. I can't help being myself. I sometimes think, when I'm such moods, that I'm damaged goods. Good enough for what I want but not for someone like him. Which is not really important if I don't desire it. Except, now I do. I try to be zen about it, keeping my desires at bay. Isn't that the key to happiness, to desire only what you have? I don't think I'll be able to give anyone what it takes to make a relationship. I believe it could be something along the lines of unconditional affection, understanding and reciprocity, but how am I to know? It's not like I had an example to follow. What I know well is how to walk away. And with Booth it's always all or nothing. There's no in between. A ride on the "Booth express" would end with me hurting him. And his proximity is something I cannot do without. I could easily forgo coffee or sleep or food, even my books. But I'm dead sure- though I never quite understood that expression- that were I to forgo Booth's being around and worrying and fretting and joking, I'd dry up. Sure I'd go on living. No one dies of a broken heart. The heart is a muscle and so, elastic and pliable by definition. It does not break. It's a fictional liberty and a wildly used metaphor, just like the heart shaped chocolate boxes. But that week he was dead, the finality of the event made my heart close on itself and... implode, you might say. I discovered the function of a heart then. Not the biological, keep the blood pumping function, but the metaphorical though very real, beating for someone function. My heart stopped the moment the surgeon came out covered in his blood- the same coating my hands with a film of loss and told- us he was dead. It only returned to its normal function when my fist connected with Booth's jaw.

Occam's razor: All things being equal, the simplest explanation is often the correct one. Fact one: my heart beats. When Booth died, it was the loneliest I had ever been. Like I had lost the best part of myself. It felt as if I would never find joy in anything ever again. Fact two: I feel loss. Even factoring in that I was a teenager at the time, I never felt a loss so acutely- even when my whole family disappeared before my eyes. Fact three: I feel again. When he jumped in front of me, I felt the oddest jolt in my cardiac muscles, in my digestive tract, in my urinary tract. I understood in half a heart beat that expression Booth had been using all this time: "what your gut tells you". My gut told me that I am in love. It follows that I'm in love. It's, perhaps, an intuitive leap. I wouldn't be able to draw from experience and compare. I have never been in love. But intuition exists.

Today is the day that I give up. I lay down the defenses I've raised. No more hiding from myself. I always thought I was brave. I wasn't. I've been hiding behind him all this time, taking my lead from him. It's has always been this comfortable, that I can stay still, contented with what we have. But now it's time to move forward. I came to the dinner firmly intent on not going home to an empty bed, with an empty heart.

********************

I couldn't sleep tonight. Nothing new there, except that today I can't even stay in bed and pretend to myself that I am resting. I had to get up and move. My thoughts make so much noise inside my head I can't hear anything else. I get dressed and head to Wong Foo's. It's been a long time since I've been there. Wong Foo's is a place of serendipity. Sitting there, I always think more clearly. And I need that tonight. My head is full of voices: some tell me it's best to keep her one her side of the line, the line that I put there to protect her from those who'd harm us. But then there's that voice that started so small, that voice that has been feeding on my attraction to that strength in her, that voice is becoming louder and louder, yelling at me that the line and all it's reasons are just a load of bull and that I'm just a being a coward, holding back because... and it's the because part I still refuse to hear.

I get dressed and resist the urge to down a glass of jack. I can do without being stopped by the traffic guys. A conversation with Sid will probably do the trick. He'll hand me something warm and comforting to drink that will bring my head into focus, will silence the voices and just help me make a decision.

I walk out of the apartment. I switch off the lights. My apartment feels so empty. There is no one to make it a home with. It's just a place where I dwell from time to time. Small wonder I spend so much time at hers. When I'm there, I don't remember how empty this feels. She fills my hours and days and months with warmth and laughter and complicity even as we stand over death, it's stench permeating our lives. Somehow, she makes it bearable.

I love driving in the evening. Love it when the roads are empty of people busy going places and there is just me, a couple of other night owls and the street lights. I love the silence of the road, the humming of the engine, finely tuned. No music for me. I like this little piece of solitude.

I park at the entrance. Few cars, choice of parking spot. Then I see it there, her car, a sporty model that will not do much to protect her if she gets into a collision. She will hear nothing of my admonitions, does not want to change it for something safer. I don't think it's recklessness or vanity. It's just how she does not care about material stuff.

This is my choice now: I either go away, avoid this place where I seem unable of self deceit or go in and face the music. It's a place of epiphany. I know why she's here. Somehow I just do. And I know why I'm here too. That _because _comes flooding back. I hold back because I know how much she can hurt me without even trying. How comfortable it is that she has allowed me to believe that I'm keeping her at arm's length just to protect her. How cowardly of me to pretend to myself that that was the only reason.

I sit there, looking into what could be if I had the courage. I have medals for bravery sitting somewhere in my underwear drawer. I laugh at myself. Courage my ass!

So I take off my official tie, roll it and stuff it in my pocket. I leave the black jacket in the car and walk in. I'm prepared for the battle. Should I prepare to loose it?

************

This place is my life, really. I could be doing something else, but life drove me here. And I'm a firm believer in not resisting what life gives you. And I was given this ability to listen. Even to what is missing from conversations. Throughout the years, the rumor has run wild that I can read people's deepest desires and cater for them with food. It's a crock of shit, really. I just listen. The rest is up to them, to believe in the power of the place or my ability to magically "know" what they need. But it's been good for business. Still, I have my favorites. Faces that I like seeing coming in through my door. I play closer attention to them.

When she walked in, her usual step a bit more hesitant tonight, I was surprised not to see him trailing behind her. She sat at the counter, but if I'm any judge- and I am- she was not exactly looking for conversation. She sat at their usual spot, so I guess she was waiting for him. Not like you wait for someone you're sure is coming, but like you wait for someone you are calling with your heart. I bring her an artimis infusion. She has made up her mind about something. And because I've been observing them for so long, I know exactly what it is she made up her mind about. I laugh to my self. He does not stand a chance. But he may fight it... So she'll need a good dose of steady head. She has a short fuse and could do with a little more combustion time... just while he accepts the inevitable, so I lace the tisaine with jack. It will take him longer than it has taken her. But I'm sure of the outcome.

I see the headlights of an SUV parking outside. This is going to be a long night. And, I'm sure, an entertaining one, at least for me. As soon as he makes it through the door, I switch off the neon lights outside. The restaurant is now empty, so I deem the lights. I'm such a romantic fool! She does not notice. She is lost in her thoughts, but the determined look is in her face.

Of course he saw her car outside. Never misses a beat, this one. So he comes in prepared. I can see the warrior look in his face. The problem with him is that he lacks the strength of his convictions in this instance. Generally, he is the kind that takes a stand and keeps right on standing. For his sake, I hope today is different. He wants to keep her away. His mind does, anyway, but his heart and his other head don't. It is so amazing to me that these two have managed to resist the sparks between them for so long. They should have spontaneously combusted by now.

He sits next to her and the weakening of his resolve is almost palpable. He looks into her eyes in that way that means that they are in the world alone, but he keeps his hands to himself. I'll bet you anything his hands are hitching to touch her face. Trust the agent to deny himself every life saving pleasure. And she's a live wire, she is. I walk into the kitchen. He is torn between saving her for an hypothetic evil and both of them from two broken hearts.

Now, I've known Seeley Booth for a long, long time and never known him to be a coward, but with her... oh man, he is terrified for his little heart. I could help. I could tell him something enlightening... I always have a million little pearls of wisdom to spout out- and some of them are even true. But... somethings are just what they are. I get him a Miso broth with a sprig of lemongrass and rosemary. For clarity, I tell him. He needs to find his way to her on his own. She doesn't want it any other way.

I get Ella Fitzgerald to sing Blue Moon for them and walk out. I'm thinking they need to be alone now, no matter how entertaining I'm sure this will get. And Booth knows where the keys to close are. For my part, I've done what I could.

***********

Wong Foo's is a cozy place with it's red upholstery and dark woods. The music played softly, alluringly. Temperance Brennan knew, just from looking at Booth, that the battle was won- even without a war. She could see his eyes, pleading with her not to disturb the peace they had managed to create, so precarious, between desire and denial. But she took a sip of her tisaine and and propped her elbow on the counter, looking at him intensely, directly in the eye. There was a challenge in her stance.

"Booth..."

"Bones..." She did not touch him, though her hands ached to do so. Her mouth was thirsty for his and she wanted to do something, or she'd die of thirst staring at the water. Usually, once she made up her mind about something, nothing could stand in her away. But he was Booth. And there was something paralyzing about what she knew she wanted to do to him, about all the sex thoughts that crossed her mind every time she so much as looked at him lately. Her pulse was racing and she was finding it progressively harder to breath.

Booth's brain was stuck on a loop. How good would it feel if, for once, he took what he wanted. If, for just this once, he wasn't such a good, decent boy. If he got hold of those lips and just kissed until he'd had enough, until his body stopped aching at the mere thought of Bones, _his Bones _in his arms. So much could go wrong.

"Touch me Booth... please" her voice was hoarse and rasp and it had that little hint of spice in it that always drove him to do whatever she wanted. Naturally, it drove him over the edge. So, he went with instinct rather than judgment and took her mouth with his. It was stupid. He knew it was stupid, but smart couldn't be half as satisfying. She took as he did. Her tongue advanced as his did, fought for pleasure as his did. And gave as much as his did. It had never crossed her mind that a kiss, a simple kiss, sitting at the counter of a family restaurant could hold so much, promise so much. Be so utterly satisfying. When he released her, she kept her eyes on his.

"Bones... we could be headed for disaster..." She finished her tisaine in one go. The fire of the jack rushing through her throat soothed her frayed nerves.

"Well, I'm not sure about you, but I'll take disaster any time over not having you. Right now, all I can think of is having your hands on me, having you make me shout your name in bed" Her voice lowered significantly. "Making you say my name. To hell with what can go wrong. I'm taking a leap of faith on you. Can you do the same with me?" Her mouth met his in a quick and fierce kiss that was more comforting than a dozen soft words.

Wong Foo's is a place of serendipity. All the voices in his head stopped. All the pieces of the equation moved into place and the picture formed, clear as day. She was right. She was a genius, after all. And making the decision did not hurt. Jumping out of his seat, taking her hand in his and pulling her into his car did not hurt. Neither did the decision of carrying her to his apartment. It was about time, anyway, to start filling the place with warmth. He would thank Sid one of these days for leaving them alone to "talk it over". Now he just needed to them home in one piece. He'd make her meow, That much he was certain of. _Just you wait, Temperance Brennan._


	7. Teach me tonight

**Author's note: There is link in my profile to listen to this song. Just don't forget to come back to read this chapter. **

**Teach me tonight**

Did you say I've got a lot to learn?  
Well, don't think, I'm trying not to learn  
Since this is the perfect spot to learn  
Oh, teach me tonight!

Let's start with the ABC of it  
Roll right down to the XWZ of it  
Help me thaw the mystery of it  
Teach me tonight!

The sky's a black board  
High above you  
If a shooting star goes by  
I'll use that star to write:  
I love you  
A thousand times across the sky  
One thing isn't very clear, my love  
Should the teacher stand so near, my love?  
Graduation's almost here, my love

Come on and teach me tonight!

*******************************************************************************************************************************

Temperance Brennan had walked into Wong Foo's determined to feel. All her life she'd been a thinking being. She was the high priestess of reason, worshiped at its alter. But on that particular evening, she just wanted to see, to taste, to to know, to feel what he'd been talking about. Screw all the flashing warnings that she was breaking all the rules. The Temperance that had had never seen a rule worth breaking had converted. Since his _miracle_ speech, as she'd come to think of it, that is. Since that moment at the diner, she played, replayed, analyzed and dissected every word, every possible meaning, every possibility. _Here we are, all of us, basically alone, separate creatures, just circling each other, all searching for that slightest hint of a real connection. Some look in the wrong places. Some — they just give up hope because, in their mind, they're thinking, 'Oh, there's nobody out there for me,' but all of us we keep trying over and over again. Why? Because every once in a while…every once in a while, two people meet and there's that spark, and, yes, Bones, he's handsome and she's beautiful and maybe that's all they see at first, but making love…making love…that's when two people become one._ It was like an echo. And depending on the mood, a choir of doom and gloom or a gospel she would like to read from. She remembered every word, every single inflection of his voice. The smell of his apple pie on his breath, the cologne, the smell of fresh clothes, the warmth from his skin and the way his pupils contracted and dilated as they reacted to the shades of light from outside their window- that's how close they were. She had argued- just for form. She wasn't even sure of what she was saying. _It is scientifically impossible for two objects to occupy the same space_. What she termed _breaking the laws of physics_, he described as a _miracle_. Somehow, she had found the strength to tell him he was right. And she had waited, with half a smile that he might cross the bridge she had laid herself into. A bridge to her heart. But he had not. Just like he would not cross that same bridge he so often asked her to build. So she stuffed her mouth with food and her mind with reminders of lines and rules and consequences. Even after the t_here's someone for everybody_ speech in Sweets office. No matter that she had felt kissed- even if they had not touched. Sweets had called it a surrogate relationship, which was no less true as it was... humiliating. She had craved a real kiss. She had craved his lips on hers, his taste on her tongue, his hands on her, his body weighting and writhing over hers. She wanted to be possessed, not protected. Touched, not admired.

When Temperance Brennan decided on something, she did not back down, she did not give up and she absolutely did not give in. She had prepared to bed after he dropped her off, after the usual good night non kiss and then, all of a sudden, her mind had been made up. It was always like that- her brain synapses were firing billions at a time: she was in love and she had been in hide-it-from-Booth mood for far too long. It was about time that she did something, that he pay her her due for all the interrupted dates, for all the speeches and all the lectures and all the gestures and all the comfort and all the who-is-he-kidding-guy-hugs. That Friday was a day as good as any other day. Either for the humiliation of a life time or for a beginning.

She had faith in him. Hodgins was right. She did not call him on the phone. She called him with her heart. She headed down to Wong Foo's hoping, knowing, that he would find her there. She did not have to wait long to see him walk in, the pleading look already in his eyes to let sleeping dogs lie. _Touch me Booth... please_. She just wanted to feel.

Her mouth was soft and demanding, persuasive and possessive, sugar and spice. Her lips found his open, waiting so she could slide her tongue over them, past them, and loose herself in his flavor, in his texture, in that depth, in his response. Her body was her mouth and the spot behind her head where his hand had gripped her hair and pulled at it, forcing her to surrender control of the kiss over to him, his clever fingers massaging her scalp into her surrender. Heat gathered in her lungs- even as his hands never left her hair and her cheek. It was a fever building up inside her, it pooled at the center of her and feeling herself go damp added to that adrenaline already charging in her blood. She could feel her heart beating in her ears, in her fingers and in her blood, her heart raced and her breathing was a pant when he decided that they both needed to breathe.

It wasn't really a first kiss. They had kissed before only without touching. In a way they had been kissing everyday since they met, in words and gestures, in looks and hands held in times of need. Sweet little kisses, long passionate ones and mad, irate kisses in anger. They had been kissing all along. Surrogate, unfulfilled kisses, when they just looked into each other's eyes for those extra fractions of a second.

He had offered her a way out. _We could be headed for disaster._ And when she had refused it. _ I'll take disaster any time over not having you_, he took her hand and pulled her to the SUV. She wouldn't remember much of the drive to his apartment except her hand on his over the gear stick. Except the hot, greedy, impatient kiss against the side of his car outside his apartment. Except for how he pressed her, hot, hard body against cold yielding metal car. Or how her legs threated to give way to the pressure already building up inside her. Or how the world seemed to be alive with her. It had to be his mouth, just that generous and tempting mouth that made her want him like that, that made her forget all that she knew about sex. Sex satisfied a basic need, biological urges. It was simple like a mathematical equation- at which she was very, very good. But it was only a set of movements- well rehearsed, precise like dancing steps. Nothing to expect- except that little moment of release of pent up tension- like the cork of a bottle of champagne. Nothing to feel. No miracle. She just wanted to feel.

He opened the door to his apartment and stepped aside to allow her in. There was a fraction of hesitation. A step taken slower than he would have expected, maybe a slight trembling of her hand. Something he would have missed if he hadn't been so in tune with every single one of her emotions just then. She had been intimidated by that space... the shame of finding him there, semi naked, intimate, lovingly with Tess, still burned in her cheeks until that night. He reclaimed it for her. She wouldn't have done it on her own. But as always, there he was, knowing better than herself what she needed. _My apartment looks so good with you inside_. It was that easy. She felt the passion and the determination when he scooped her up in his arms and carried her through the threshold. In her mind, the image of a cave man formed, carrying his woman into his cave. She felt possessed by him on that simple iconographic image. Cherished. The ardent feminist in her recoiling to enjoy what the little girl she still was, somewhere well hidden, desired so long ago.

Somehow, she thought of Julie Andrews. Not the _Hills are alive_ thing... But that little song in The Sound of Music where she first kisses Captain von Trapp. And she says _for somewhere in my wicked, miserable youth, I must have done something good_. Art did imitate life. Right there and then, it had to be true, that she had to have done something good to deserve to be there. Could have been all the times she was told not to cry- and didn't. Or had been told not to tell- and stayed silent. _For there you are, standing there, loving me._... She prayed that he would mark her, that he would bruise her somewhere she could see clearly, just so that she could remind herself that it had, in fact, happened, that she had not just dreamed it.

He carried her in his arms to the bedroom, his heart beating against hers. She was torn between the urgency of the sex she craved and the need to stay there, feeling tiny and cherished and all things good in his arms. Impatience won. She fastened her lips to his as he deposited her on the bed and pulled him to her. In a quick movement, she rolled them over and straddled him. There were pulses of energy running through her body. Out of her body, she thought. An energy so intense she could be shining like a star. Maybe even a sun. She couldn't move fast enough or taste enough or do enough. She had been wanting him for so long that now she wanted it all at the same time. She wanted all of him at the same time, all over her in a frenzied hunger that would not be sated. A wave of pleasure washed over her when she heard his breath hitch and he groaned in response to her touch. She craved him and, it seemed, no touch was enough to satisfy that craving. It had been a long time since she had indulged in the satisfaction of her biological urges. A long time since she had been with a man. Since she had even wanted to. Any choice of a sexual partner had been marred by the understanding that they were no more than pale placebos. The drive to just rip away at his clothes and satisfy that need for release was fierce, implacable. She just wanted to take, take, take. And then take some more. She had managed to fight her way out of her boots and peel away her pants without letting go of him when he held her tightly in his arms, effectively stopping her from moving. He sat up on the bed and held her facing him, her face caught between his hands, her eyes caught in his. She could feel her breathing coming in ragged hiccups. _Shhhhhh, Temperance, Shhhhhh._ Her breath slowed with her name as he uttered it like an incantation. Her heart rate slowed it's mad compass. _Don't rush... Marathon, this is a marathon, not a sprint_. The protest died in her throat, smothered by a rough kiss that started in her mouth and continued down her neck all the way to her shoulder. _What's the hurry? I want to look at you first_, he spoke calmly, his clever fingers tracing routes of fire from her cheek bone to her sternum, then to her breast, circling around her nipple. _I want._.. but she lost track of what was it that she wanted when the callus on his trigger finger rubbed the pink button of her nipple. _Yes? You were saying?_ She sighed. _I want you!_ Her voice came out an octave higher, her breath hitched when his mouth latched on to her other breast. _I know._ Her hands were holding on to his broad shoulders as if that warm contact was the only thing holding her to earth. She wanted to feel, feel, feel. And he was making her fly, making her head go fuzzy, unable to process pleasure, to rationalize it. _So beautiful, Temperance. _His mouth on hers, a kiss of life. _I want you inside me_. He held her fast in his arms. _And I want to make love to you, my Temperance._ Her name on his mouth was like wind in fields of hay, a rustling of syllables, a murmur of desires. A sound so old time could not comprehend it. _Teach me, Both. Please teach me._ She did not recognize her own voice, or that emotion that thickened it, made it almost painful to utter. As if she had to give birth to the concept before uttering it. He just smiled at her, that smile he used to exclude everybody else of their little bubble.

She squirmed in his hands, twisted in his hands, writhed against him, against herself as his mouth explored her neck line, his hands explored her backbone and his breath warmed everything in its wake. It was torture, that so gentle touch of his but as she sighed and writhed and twisted and squirmed, it became faster, harder, more persuasive until she had to stifle a scream of pleasure. There was fire raging all over her and with every touch and he just added fuel to it. _Lesson number one: take your time_ he lectured looking deep in her eyes, as her irises expanded and contracted at will, the blue in them deepening to an impossible hue. Her system was about to crash. This was not what she had come to expect of sex. This was not simple as a mathematical equation. _Teach me, Booth._ He let her explore his skin, throat to navel. She took him in her hands, hard and hot and felt herself close to orgasm just from the exhilarating feeling of holding him in her hands. She stroked him, admiring the reaction to her touch, thinking back to the time when, in the beginning, she thought he did not even see her as a woman, let alone a desirable one. It had only taken her four years to prove herself wrong. That was the longest she had ever labored under a miss interpretation. She pushed him down onto the sheets, ready to take him inside her. But he held her by the wrists, holding them above her head and flipped her down so that she was pressed between the bed and his body. Panic set in, fogging her vision, bringing back ghosts she had fought hard for too many lonely years. That she had never allowed to control her life. _Don't... please! _He saw the panic, he read between the lines of her file he still kept in his office like a relic of a martyr. He nearly released her. But the panic in her eyes was laced with desire. _Lesson number two: trust me_.

He caressed the skin on her wrists with his thumb, slowly releasing the hold on her, but keeping her his hand there. The other hand traveled down her arm, to her neck and collar bone, her breast and the side of her ribcage, her belly button and came to rest on her mound, cupping it, gently, undemanding, patient. She writhed and panted but did not pull out of his hold._ I trust you, Booth._ She sealed the declaration with a kiss, the panic subdued, the desire still alive. And her writhing of panic became fidgeting of impatience. Her hands held on to his hair and her fingertips made contact with the skin on his back and made their way down the rippled muscles of his back and cupped his butt cheeks. Her kiss became distracted as she gained access to those two globes she had coveted every time she had manged to walk behind him. She was busy kneading his skin and pressing him to her, his erection straining against her legs. She opened up to him and just knew how good it would feel if he just slid inside her and took possession of her. His hand, still on her mound, pressed down, covered her entrance and his hand still at her wrists clamped them down. _Lesson number three: surrender control._

And his middle finger slid down her, through her, into her, tight, hot, wet. His. And the dregs of the panic in her face melted into shock and helplessness. He slid in a second finger and she gasped as her body gave way to him. His fingers moved in search of that sweet spot, exploring her boldly, the gentle touches alternating with more forceful strokes, the ups and downs with rights and lefts, the circles with the straight lines. She felt herself slipping, sinking into that wave of pleasure. Even if she had tried fighting for control, it would have been a lost cause. She trusted him, surrendered to him and the pull of his gravitational force was so intense that the only thing she was aware of was that someone had screamed as her body imploded, a supernova of sensation, of pleasure, sharp, hot, brand new. She understood then the French expression _pettit mort. I_t was like dying- and returning to the world brand, shinny new_._ _More_, he demanded. _I can't,_ she pleaded. _More,_ he told her as he pulled her up to sit on his lap and kissed new life into her, his tongue taking possession of her lips, playing with them, cajoling them into giving back, into opening up to him. She trusted him and surrendered control to him, so she just did as he asked, her hands on his chest coming to life again, tracing his skin and the map of scars etched on it. She looked for one in particular, the one so close to his heart, the one that had broken hers. It had taken a near cataclysmic event to change the course of events. She kissed soft butterfly kisses in that little bit of skin, her own shrine of devotion. _Lesson number four: take what I give you_.

She was building up again, the heat returning in a fever. Free from his weight, her hands roamed free, nearly always followed by her mouth. Her body arched fluidly backwards giving him full access to her neck, her breasts. He took all she gave him, tasting the abandonment she gave it with, like a precious honey. She raised on her knees and lowered herself over him, preparing to take him in. He held her in place. _Open your eyes, Temperance. Look at me while I take you._ So she watched him, slipping inside her, a perfect fit. One hand busy stroking her hair, the clever fingers of the other playing with the flesh of her bottom, teasing, parting, pressing. She built up quickly, almost violently. Concentrating on the first lesson: no need to hurry, she rocked her hips squeezing him inside her at spaces, drawing pleasure moans from him. With a swift movement, he laid her back down on the cool sheets, beads of sweat glistening on her skin, her cheeks flushed with the heat emanating from their coupling. He kept his strokes long, deep and slow, strokes that kindled her soul, that stirred emotions she had forgotten to feel. She forgot her name, where she was, and all her rules. There was just Booth and his liquid body, filling her up, occupying every single little space of hers, her body, her heart, her soul. A hum of passion she wasn't aware of flowed from her throat. She opened her eyes to their fingers linked just there by her face, their hands clasped, holding on, taking care of each other, each a compass to the other.

She had always known her learning curve was steep. _L_e_sson number five, _she spoke,_ I'm your North, don't be afraid to get lost._ Temperance could see herself reflected in Booth's eyes, and the smile that was only for her and the tension that had been building exploded into a million refractions of light when he said _I love you, Temperance. _She closed around him, a hot greedy fist, demanding more and more as he plunged one final time and emptied himself into her.

They didn't speak for a long time. There really wasn't any need. The heat of their two bodies together, the beating of the two hearts, the silent eyes, the soothing fingers spoke all that words could not say about the bafflement that was feeling so whole, of being so totally in each other's hands- and knowing they'd be OK.

Later, with the only the cold moonlight coming in through the window, he ran his fingers through her shoulders, pleasurably stroking his hand how her back, tracing the backbone, _the vertebrae_, he corrected himself, the smooth skin warm, yielding, inviting to his touch. She observed him, eyes semi closed, a cat like smile, illuminating her delicate features and his bedroom. He combed his fingers through her hair, marveling at the shades of old whiskey that shone in the moonlight. She shivered lightly in the cold evening and he slid to where she lay and draped himself over her, warming her with his skin, his breath warm and comforting on her neck. She wasn't really good at declarations and grandiose statements. So she spoke against his chest, her eyes closed, shy, _I love you. _His hand was suspended mid air, the caress interrupted only briefly by the impact of her words. He pulled into his arms and held her tight to him.

In a moment or so, he would kiss her again and it would all start again, the heat and greed, the desire and the want, fierce as teeth. But for that particular moment, all she wanted was to be just there, just close, just so. _That complicates matters for you, doesn't it, Temperance?_ She smiled a small smile. _Outrageously. _He couldn't get enough of her skin. _Your love is safe with me. Stay?_ How could she do anything but? _Yes. I still have a lot to learn._


	8. Nothing else matters

**Author's note: AchingBones suggested she would like to see Booth's point of view on the last chapter "Teach me tonight". Here you go, luv! **

**Nothing else matters**

So close no matter how far  
Couldn't be much more from the heart  
Forever trusting who we are  
And nothing else matters

Never opened myself this way  
Life is ours, we live it our way  
All these words I don't just say  
And nothing else matters

Trust I seek and I find in you  
Every day for us something new  
Open mind for a different view  
And nothing else matters

Never cared for what they do  
Never cared for what they know  
But I know

No nothing else matters

***********************************************************************************

Carrying her off Wong Foo's I was my old teenage self again. I could hardly walk, my dick standing to attention, straining against my underwear. I'm not even sure I locked the place for Sid. I hope I did. But my hands shook like a junkie's when I had to let go of her to close the heavy doors, to turn the key on the lock. Withdrawal is a bitch. I couldn't even breathe until I pressed her against the door, my breath all over the place like I had just ran 50 miles on a sprint. I had to lean against her and press her against that door and feel all of her. It took all my will power not to take her there. _Not here, not here, it has to be better than this. It has to mean more than a quicky on a busy road._ So pulled off her, all my cells, all my atoms and molecules fighting to stay close to her. Man, I don't even know how I managed to get to my place in one piece. My mum was right, my guardian angel is powerful. We could have been stopped by the traffic cops, crashed against something or someone. Instead, I don't even remember stopping at a red light. Maybe I just didn't see them. _Faster, faster, faster! _I pulled over, and my dick screamed at me _here, now, now, now. _ Just like any boy, on the back of car, with any girl. _My Bones is not any girl, not for the back of a car._ So when I got a grip, her hand was still over mine over the gear shift, her heat spreading through me. I had to get out into the cold, to give my head a chance to think. When I opened the door she was still sitting there and when I helped her out, when I held my hand out to her, she took it, no reservations, no holding back. Just giving. _Slow, what's the hurry? Take your time, Seel! _But the kiss was inevitable. There are things a man needs to do when a man needs to do. Pressing her against the car, like a rowdy teenager was one of those things. Breathing in her hear the words that I did not dare say out loud like _ I love you_ or _you are so beautiful_ or _stay with me forever_. Mushy stuff she'd sneer at, stuff bad romantic songs are made of. So I kissed them onto her. I could actually smell her arousal, and my hand had to rub her, over her pants to make sure it was true, to make sure it remained true.

And then we got to the door. I unlocked it, and for the first time in years I did not look for the tell tale signs of some invisible threat. For the first time in years I just walked in through my front door. My house, my door, not a target. She did that for me. She claimed it for me. And the moment the door opened, even before she walked through the it, it was already a better place than what I had left to go to Sid's for a night cap of comfort and that something else I knew was waiting there for me. Her hand on mine hesitated when I stood back for her to walk through. It was a nanosecond, a fraction of time she let a guard down. But she hesitated. She'd been to my place before. Not as often as I had been to hers, but often enough and I had never noticed that before. But then again, I had never been holding her hand and knowing I'd be making love to her as soon as we'd made it through the door. It took me nearly four years to see what she saw when she walked through my door- not my privacy but what I kept secret, what I did not want to share with her. My rudeness at telling her to mind her own business. All the ways I found not to get close to her. Small wonder she thought for so long I didn't want her. _God, what an idiot! _Bones wouldn't go around peeing on trees like I do around her. So she believed whatever lies I chose to tell myself. Too many self deceptions, too little time.

I picked her up from the floor and carried her in. I must have said something good, because the tension left her shoulders and she snuggled in my arms.

I had her in my arms before. I pulled her from death before, danced with her, hugged her my stupid guy-hug-lie before, smelled her hair and felt that warmth that emanates from her skin before. But never, _ever_, did anything felt this good, her hands holding on to my shoulders, her body, curve for curve, the direct match to mine, though she is small and fragile where I have built myself to be what I am, pure muscle bulk to go with a resilient mind. _Her body is a wonderland _and I could get lost in there and never come back. So I kissed her for my life. Or she kissed me. I wouldn't really know. But suddenly, it was like my skin was the only thing holding me together because I just wanted to be all over her, be inside her, absorb her, breathe and take her in. Might as well be 14 again and not know anything about loving a woman. No touch was enough. I struggled for control. And like my usual self, i had to control her. "Shhhhhh, Temperance, Shhhhh..." I would have come in my pants, like the first time Rosie O'Dell and I made out under the bleachers if her hands had touched me one more time.

I held her face in my hands and steadied her with my arms. I could actually hear her heart beating and that vein pulsing on the side of her forehead. And her breath, so sweet, slowing down. _Oh God, I'll drown in those eyes _so I dived into her mouth and just plundered, unable to stop, to be gentle. _Her body is a wonderland. _I just wanted to see her, what I was about to make mine, to possess, and _Oh my God, that scent of her skin, she is a wonderland,_ just spreading all over me like a balsam, and I_ bet her skin tastes just like heaven_, so I kissed that cheekbone so full of character and her neck and her shoulder and before I could stop myself, I was all over her breasts, suckling at them _ Oh God, I can die here tonight. _And when I held her breast in my hand, the warm flesh, soft, pliable, firm, the breast that I had coveted for so long and tried to keep safe for me for so long, she pleaded with me to get inside her. The soft begging of a lover, her voice like old whiskey, liquid, a teardrop on the fire. _Yes, _my dick was screaming yes, but my heart was begging for time. If anything, I had to make this good for her, unforgettable. I wanted to make love to her, not to fuck her, though it will happen, I will fuck her, just not now, now was the time for loving. "I want to make love to you, my Temperance" Her name sounds like a prayer to Our Lady of Lovemaking. Like it was made to be used in the bedroom or wherever she lets you take her. All whispers, that name. "Teach me, Booth" _There! Right there, that moment in time when all rewards come to you. _I just wanted to make it last, at least as much as I've been waiting for her. "take your time" and _oh my God _she did. Those hands of hers, like butterflies on my skin. No one, not even the rain has such light touch. The hands that stood over death with me, the hands that killed for me, all over me, mapping me, uncharted territory _Sweet Mother of Mercy _she touched the hills of my shoulders down to the valley of my navel, held me in her hands, subduing me to her will. And when she took my dick in her hands and rubbed the tip with her finger, around and around, such a crazy merry-go-round I didn't know who I was, just that Bones, _my Bones_, was loving me. She flattened me onto the sheets, and she was more than ready. I could see it, taste, it, smell it. Call me stupid, but I wanted that look in her eyes to last forever. Or at least, postpone the moment she'll wake up an decide this was a mistake and she doesn't want to see me ever again. I grabbed her wrists, and brought her under me, made her my prisoner. I should have known better. _Such an idiot. _There was panic, immediate, utter panic. So painful in my heart like it is in hers. And I know what fear is. Our fears. I read hers in that litany of pain I still have hidden in my office, I won't let myself forget it. My first instinct was to let go and kiss it all better. I'd chop off any offending bit of me that hurt her, but there was want and desire and hunger in her eyes as much as there was fear. "Trust me" and I let go of her wrists and kissed her back to where we were, back from those filthy rooms from the report on her file. In time, I will kiss all residual panic away from her, love her memories clean of that infect fear. I will. "I trust you"_. _And she did. She doesn't say things she doesn't mean. So she stayed under me, open to me, trust in her eyes, in her arms stretched above her head, and my fingers teasing her into letting me take over "Surrender control". I wanted to forget the control I taught myself to live by, to just go in and plunder and ravage. _Fuck patience and fuck time_. But she is my Bones. And she is all my wet dreams incarnated, hot, wet, willing, and she gasps when I find that sweet spot, and her eyes glaze over when she comes in my hands and _Oh my God, thank you _because it's been so long I've been with a woman and so long since I've been hoarding all of this just to give her, I just want to stay here, making her come forever. "Again" I fought for control. "More". Her body is languid, and yields to my touch, liquid. And she gives more and more, her eyes closed. I want to look in her eyes when I take her. I want to see myself in there. I don't want to see any fear there. Just me. My most faithful mirror. I love who I am in those eyes. _In_. Slow. _Out._ I am hers. _In._ Deep. _Out_. I am a good person. _In_. I am truth. _Out_. I am trust. _In_. She is welcoming. _Out._ She is truth. _In._ She is mine. _Out._ She is trust. _In_. No reservations. _Out._ I'll follow her wherever she goes. _In_. Our hands locked together. _Out_. An anchor to each other. _In._ Holding on. _Out_. "I am your North" She says. _In_. I stay still. Absolutely still._ I'll never get lost_. I couldn't be sure I had said it out loud. "_I love you"._ I've said it so many times, shouted and whispered it in my head so many times. In my dreams and awake. But she smiled at me. No fear, no annoyance, no sarcasm. Just love. And her body quaking around me, hot pulsing demand, wet greedy need. Ripping through me. I took her hips in my hands and one more stroke and I yield, capitulate, I come like... except there is no like. This is so new... _Oh fuck. Just don't cry, Seel. Just not that_. Though she feels so unbelievably good that I could, I would.

I could have made it last so much more for her, if I hadn't been so greedy, if I hadn't needed her so much for so long. To please myself, I ran my hand down her back bone, up and down, softly. Her skin is so welcoming... I ran my fingers through her hair. It smells like home and down her eyebrows to her lips, so fiercely responsive. I was so, so surprised at where I was able to take her. It's a wonder how no one had ever made her feel like she did tonight. _Primitive?_ Yes, I know, I'm only a lowly alpha male... and heart breaking that no one ever made her feel loved. _I'm so full of shit, My God!_ For four years I have been passively loving, passively in love. Where is the trust I demanded from her? The willingness to take what she wanted to give me? The willingness to surrender control? _I confess to almighty God, and to you, my Bones, that I have sinned through my own fault, in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done, and in what I have failed to do. _ All my omissions are my most grievous fault. I pray for absolution for not having trusted her with my heart. I wonder if it's just me or if it is a male thing, like sitting with your legs wide open, that we tend to not see who's in front of us. I thought that I could see her, that I knew her better than she knows herself. That I know what she needs, what she must do, how she should be feeling. And I've been trying to turn her into this improved version of herself. I am full of shit. Haven't I been in love since that very first moment, since she called me up on my bullshit, confronted be, like very few have dared doing? God, I am so full of it I couldn't even see her there. Made her in to an object of adoration and a personal project. I took Bones on like most take on a hobby. But I didn't see her. Not really. I was so up my own self that I just did not see all the times she wanted to be kissed. I could not see her there, loving me. _Forgive me, Bones, for I have sined_.I sat tight in my cowardly ass telling myself she was not ready for love, not ready for me. Like I am that great at it. Like I haven't shagged my away around all along dressed in this nice catholic boy skin. Nice catholic boys do not bed women just to forget about one more notch in the killing belt. They do not fuck strangers to stave off a gambling addiction and they most certainly do not screw a woman to get respite from wanting another. No, nice catholic boys do not break 50% of the commandments with one breath. _Shit!_ All the lessons, all the preaching are yet one more capital sin. Pride.

She curled into my chest, her breath sweet and warm against my skin. "I love you". And my sins are forgiven. Just like that. And nothing else matters.

And now, here she is, laying asleep in my bed, a happy smile playing in her face. I had never seen a happy smile on her. Satisfied? Yes. Smug? Yes. And tender and sympathetic and conspiratorial too. But happy? This is a first. And it's all for me, all mine. I put it there. How come I took so long to see her standing there, waiting for me?

She sleeps in trusting abandonment, her skin warm silk, inviting and tempting, her breath sweet and slow. She knows I'm here, standing guard, warding off her ghosts.

Love is a verb. It's action, a doing word. We are two lost souls that found each other. We turned away from something and made ourselves into something else. We trust and protect each other. And now, we love. We do not sit in wait. We take our fears, and in trust, we love. Because love is a doing word. No, nothing else matters.


	9. Feeling Good

**Author's note: Thank you to Mickey Boggs for revising this chapter- on a weekend- of all times!**

**Note 2: I really, really love this song. If you don't know it or just don't remember how it goes, there is a link in my profile to where you can listen to it! **

**I hope you enjoy!  
**

********

Birds flying high you know how I feel  
Sun in the sky you know how I feel  
Reeds drifting on by you know how I feel

Its a new dawn  
Its a new day  
Its a new life  
For me  
And I'm feeling good

Fish in the sea you know how I feel  
River running free you know how I feel  
Blossom in the tree you know how I feel

Dragonfly out in the sun you know what I mean, don't you know  
Butterflies all having fun you know what I mean  
Sleep in peace when day is done  
That's what I mean

And this old world is a new world  
And a bold world  
For me

Stars when you shine you know how I feel  
Scent of the pine you know how I feel  
Oh freedom is mine  
And I know how I feel

***********************************************************************************

Muscular memory woke her. Her core, still vibrating as if her last orgasm was still shuddering through her. Her hands still remembered flexing around his shoulders. Her legs still remembered sustaining her as she lowered herself onto him, took him in, danced him to the end of love. And her heart still beat wildly- from the effort or the emotion- maybe both. Her heart still strained to find space to expand because it was too full to fit inside her ribcage. Memories of that smile so broad, so new she couldn't help but smile all over again.

It was a brand new world. Like only the first butterfly in paradise could feel it, all shine and bright light, clean and fresh. An oxymoron, surely, but laying there, caught between his arms, being held so tightly was the freest Temperance had ever felt, like a bird with all the immensity of the sky to fly or a fish with a limitless ocean to swim. Her greatest freedom had come from loving him.

She didn't move. He would wake up as soon as she did. So she kissed his muscled arm wrapped around her, breathed in his scent- and hers on him- and fell into a sleep with no ghosts and no dreams, just warmth.

**********

It was the absence of fear that woke him. No dreams, no hauntings, not a care in the world. Temperance was asleep in his arms, the dramatic blue eyes closed, showing him the little girl she had been so long ago. She was his, so if only for that day, there was nothing wrong with the world- and there was no one else in it. Just him, just her- Adam and Eve.

She stirred in her sleep. _Shhhh, sleep a while longer._ His fingers ran through her hair, tousled and in disarray. It was early still, hardly any light coming in through the window. Her lips curved into a smile- his smile- and her breath evened. Joy pulsed through his veins and filled every little recondite place of his heart; little bits of him he didn't even know could feel happiness. Like all his sins had been forgiven and he had been allowed to be heaven and freedom and all that he believed in.

The dawn was fresh and new and still far. So he closed his eyes and slept.

************

I woke up happy. Happy to be where I was, happy to be awake. Sleep seemed such a waste. Time is a precious commodity. And we have already let 4 years go by. Thank god for entropy.

His hand roved down my breast, played with my nipple, still tender, still responsive to his touch, still eager for more, descended down to my chest, my belly and left a path were my skin was warmer because he had touched it. I think he might have still been half asleep but he knew me so well already that when he got to that little shock of fuzzy hair, his fingers, his so-clever fingers knew exactly where to touch to make me surrender. _Good morning_, he whispered in my ear, and I could hear his breath catching, the desire erupting in him as much as in me. _Good morning_, I whispered back, afraid to wake up the world, and my legs opened to him, letting his fingers, his oh-so-clever fingers that knew exactly where to touch come inside me and tease me and draw the first scream of pleasure out of me, that first exquisite shiver of the morning. I ground my back against him, swaying my hips in invitation. I could feel his naked form against me, every single inch of him, of his skin, quivering in anticipation. Yesterday I was so consumed with need and greed, with four years of self-imposed denial, I wasn't even able- I know now- to fully enjoy the work of art he is. I wanted him so fully, so fiercely, so impossibly much that I wasn't capable of enjoying the details. Who was it that said that God is in the details? If there is a God, and maybe there is, he must have been in a particularly inspired day when he made this man. He was generous with the details. Because of all that he is to others, and because his mouth knows that little spot behind my ear, that it makes my core tingle with anticipation, and his fingers know that touching my clit when his fingers are inside me make any residual control escape me and put me at his mercy. God is in the details. The detail of his breath- a caress, of his eyes- an embrace, of the sound of his voice- an old song I know so well, of his scent- a tattoo on my senses.

What started gentle, lazy morning touching, greeting, awakening fired, sparked, ignited the need all over again. Except now I know that spot between his hip and his rib that makes him twist helplessly when tickled. Who would have said Seeley Booth is ticklish? And know that the crook of his arm, right there, the inside of his elbow, when kissed, arouses him- more than a deep kiss- and that behind his knee is another sweet spot. But I want to know more. I want to know all of him, know chapter and verse of him, inside out. Know him by heart. Is it too greedy?

His erection on my back, pressing against my ass makes me swell with pride, that I did this to him, that I am able shake his control to make his breath hitch and lose cadence. But it is not enough. Nothing is enough. Not when you spent four years denying yourself all that you ever wanted. So I move swiftly and flatten him on the bed. My turn. My Man. My territory. God he is beautiful. I start my exploration at his neck. I kiss and lick and when he laughs, a husky laughter I have never heard before, filled with want and need, I just can't resist. I laugh too. I can't help it, it is contagious. I never thought I could laugh in bed. Sex was always a very grown up thing to do, serious in its intensity. I am discovering that making love can be about laughter and fun too, because my heart is light and giddy.

I discover that kissing him just below his Adam's apple always has the same reaction- his skin crawls, and heats up. And it heats me up too, because the need is pooling impossibly at my center and it is torture because I know I just need to say the words, _take me_, and he would fill me, and satisfy me. But he is made of so many details, and I want to make love to him. There should be no rush.

I straddle him and rub that heat against his chest. His fingers touch me and appease me while, once again I set out on my exploration task, down his shoulders, so wide that seem to support the word at times, down his arms and back up again, down his torso, all firmness and softness, making him twist and laugh again when I get to that spot just by his floating ribs. I love it when he laughs. It's the best sound in the whole world and I crave it, because it feeds my ego as well, that he can laugh with me. So I kiss that spot again and again until he begs for mercy. Seeley Booth begging for mercy... who'd have thought.... I had planned to go take my time, explore his legs again, just to better appreciate that intricate web of powerful muscles that make him run to me every time I need him but here's what I've learned: why plan? We have all the time in the world. Detours and short cuts are good, are healthy. I am tired of living according to a plan. Time to improvise. So when I get to his navel and his shaft is there, a mast standing proud, responding even to the light touch of my hair falling loose, I just forget where I was going and devote my full attention to yet one more detail. I know what he can do already, but I marvel at the sight, entrancing, enticing, mesmerizing. It's like being thirsty and standing by the water. So I drink. He was still smiling when I took him in my mouth. If ever I was going to believe there is a god, then this would be it, this moment of perfection in trust and beauty.

I make sure he is looking at me. He raises on his forearms and looks at me as my mouth encircles him and begins a simple rocking motion, an hypnotic up and down, undemanding, uncomplicated. I want to get reacquainted with him , discover him as a lover so, as his eyes close and his mouth opens in pleasure, my tongue delivers a massage in small circles, pressing against him, inviting him to surrender control. And I could do this forever. Because I have never seen anything more beautiful than his eyes, darkened to an impossible brown when he looks straight into mine, through the heat and the fever.

***********

I have never seen anything as beautiful as this woman looking at me while her magic mouth casts spells of need on me. Nothing has ever felt this good. Not by a million miles, especially when her hand, that little, precious hand cups my sac and plays with it, delicately, lovingly. Her fingers, her oh-so-clever fingers tease, provoke, demand a reaction, traveling up and down, left and right, massaging, poking, probing. I feel the tension building up, slowly, steadily. Is there anything better than lazy morning sex, when you are just taking your time, enjoying every touch, unencumbered? Maybe. I'm sure, with Bones, there is, that every hour will have its own magic, its own enchantment, its own luxury of sensations.

She brings me back with a well-aimed touch in the nook behind my knee that always makes me twist. I'll never admit to being ticklish. But she's laughing, it's just about the best sound in the world, Temperance Brennan laughing in my bed. _Oh I'm gonna get you for that._ She feigns fear but she's laughing more and I just can't resist the urge to drink more and more of that laughter, get myself drunk on it. I make a grab for her and catch her by the arm as she tries to make good her escape. I pull her to me and after some maneuvering- not all of it feigned, she could after all beat me to the ground if she wanted to- I manage to pin her face down on the bed and tickle her, hand and mouth and beard all over her skin. She likes that, my incipient beard running down her bare skin, so I turn her to me and run my chin and cheek down her chest and that laughter slowly becomes a purr and there it is, that moment when laughter becomes need. So my body descends on her, my hand finds its way to her bottom to lift her from the bed and I slowly enter her, wet and wanting, welcoming like nothing else I've ever experienced before in my whole life. And because I'm home again, I can take my time. I just stay there, feeling her stretch to accommodate me, her smile so warm, her hand touches my face and her mouth raises to meet mine in a lazy, Sunday morning kiss. Her signal is clear, she clenches her muscles and I move in time with her, my hand under her bottom giving her leverage to move against me so that every time I plunge forward, I slide as deep towards her heart as possible, slow, always slow, gentle, lovingly. And I can see now what I did not see yesterday in that all-consuming need to devour her, that her cheeks flush a soft pink and her skin gets goosebumps and that her eyes darken to almost purple as she builds up to release. God, she is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. God is in the details. As her head tilts back and the word escapes her mouth _Booth_, a whisper or a plea, her muscles contract around me, powerfully, demanding my own surrender.

I can feel her heart beating against my chest, an echo of my own. In the silence of the apartment, there is only the drumming of our hearts beating in tandem and the song that is our ragged breaths.

I nestle in her neck and hold her hand in mine, marveling at how that smallness fits so well in mine. God is in the details.

**************

It took them a long time to find not the will but the strength to get out of bed, to physically extricate themselves from one another. It was like missing a vital organ- a lung or a heart. But they got through it, with laughter and kisses and promises. Together, the world was their oyster and murder and mayhem were still alive and well outside.

Together they decided to go through the day as if nothing had changed. There were far too many people invested in their relationship- both professional and personally. What they had was still new and tender and needed care and attention and not to be exposed to the world. What they had was theirs and theirs alone.

They had coffee together like they nearly always did, the same table, the same waitress, the same coffee, the same pie. But something was different, radically, diametrically different from what had been just the day before. It was more than a new day: it was a new world, full, not of promises, but of the peace that comes with achievement, not of finishing a journey but of finally beginning a new, very much anticipated one. It was a new life.

********  
Seeley Booth walked into the Hoover building still trying to persuade himself that the whole day would not be a waste just because he was not making love to her. He walked past the bullpen and exchanged the normal comments with the normal people and wondered what lay beneath the placid expressions. Did any of them love as he did?

He sat at his desk and pondered what to do to make it through the next couple of hours at least until lunch. He drew his cell phone from his pocket and typed the first thing that came to his mind._ I love you. Miss you already._ She'd think it was silly and sentimental. He ran his hand through his hair and smiled to himself. Might as well get on with work.

**********

Her phone beeped even before she had managed to shrug in her lab coat. Work could wait. She read the text once, twice, scrolled up and down just to prolong the feeling. It was the first time anyone had written those sentimentalities to her- at least meaning them- and her pride grew at the loving warmth that came from the words in the blue lit screen. Like a dried out body that finally comes to rest in a tepid bath. She felt an increase of self-esteem and, it seemed to her, she was at the beginning of a supremely interesting existence where each hour had its own charm, each step lead to ecstasy and her soul dwelt in a wealth of new sensations.

With a sigh, her fingers typed a quick reply. She composed her face into the blankest expression she could muster before walking out into the lab. Inside, she was turning cartwheels.

********

Booth sat through an updates meeting trying -and failing- to pay attention. His phone vibrated in his pocket. Discreetly, he read the text: _Does that mean you're my boyfriend now? PS- I love you. _For a poker player, he failed miserably at a poker face. There was a stubborn smile that just would not be erased and sigh so happy that it had faces turning to him. Bones loved him. It felt good. _He_ felt good. Who cared about the rest?


	10. The Way You Look Tonight

**Author's note: I need to thank two people: MickeyBoggs for her proof reading skills she always volunteers so kindly and Manda517 for the inspiration for the dress- and it's an important dress too- though some details may be different for her original. Thre is always a degree of interpretation, I guess. In any case, you can find Manda's original dress and the story it goes with ****here****.**

**A review at the end would be nice!**

**Enjoy**

**Jane**

Some day, when I'm awfully low,  
When the world is cold,  
I will feel a glow just thinking of you...  
And the way you look tonight.

Yes you're lovely, with your smile so warm  
And your cheeks so soft,  
There is nothing for me but to love you,  
And the way you look tonight.

With each word your tenderness grows,  
Tearing my fear apart...  
And that laugh that wrinkles your nose,  
It touches my foolish heart.

Lovely ... Never, ever change.  
Keep that breathless charm.  
Won't you please arrange it ?  
'Cause I love you ... Just the way you look tonight.

Mm, Mm, Mm, Mm,  
Just the way you look tonight.

***********************

He'd ended up buying her flowers. Which annoyed him because it was such a cliché. But he had worried and worried. And then worried some more. She was not the traditional type. If there was such a thing as a rule regarding flowers on your first date, he doubted she'd even know it. Hell, he was confused himself. So he had opted out of the flower thing. How the hell was he supposed to know? Ask Parker? The kid was under ten and had a date a week. Granted, a date at McDonald's to which he took him and his freckled, pig-tailed dates, but a date a week nonetheless. Parker probably knew more about dating than he did, being off the circuit for what now, 2 years? God, he should have asked someone. Angela. Angela would know. He should have asked her. Even Hodgins. He would never live it down, but he should have asked. He would hate to see in her eyes an ounce of disappointment. She hadn't been off the dating game at all. Either one of those two idiots she had dated at the same time would be a testament to that. They wouldn't have fumbled outside her building trying to decide whether to pick the bunch of daisies from the back seat or to toss the flowers behind the bushes of the entrance. What he didn't want was for it to be misinterpreted. He wanted to do things right. It was a first date after all. Not that anyone would know. They had just spent their first night together, lived through their first day apart. No one could know, in fact. It had to be like the best kept secret ever.

Booth looked at the flowers again and sighed. If he hadn't thought about it and bought them, he wouldn't be arguing with himself like an idiot now. Give, not give, give, not give. What was he, ten? Then there was the slight problem of what to say to her. To actually say something was more the problem. He just knew he was going to be tongue tied, flapping like a fish out of water when she opened the door. What if he had dreamed the last night? What if she regretted it already, having come to her senses? _Oh dear God, get a fucking grip, Booth_. He went through his lines in his head. If he got the text right, maybe he wouldn't look so pathetic, so not the alpha male she was used to. _Good evening... Good evening what? Good evening Bones? Good evening Temperance? Tempe? Quit it, Booth! That's a whole new level of loser! _But what was he supposed to call her now, outside work_, when they were just... well, just them? You look gorgeous. You look stunning. You look beautiful. Scratch that last one. She did not look beautiful. She was beautiful. Nice dress. What if she wasn't wearing a dress? These kinds of things were always dress events, right? He was wearing a tux, for heaven sakes. It had to be a dress. But just in case it wasn't, what was the word? Ensemble? Nice ensemble? Nuh, too... weird. Nice outfit. _Somehow, it did not sound about right. He could always go with "nice body"_. Which was true. Oh so true. _But hardly appropriate if you wanted to do things right. Somehow, without realising, he had found himself outside her door and still clutching the bunch of daisies and still struggling with his greeting line. The door opened slowly but decisively.

"Wow!" He forgot about the flowers, the dress, the outfit, the beautiful against gorgeous. There was just her face, that perfectly angular face with the shiniest blue eyes in the whole wide world and those lips made for him to kiss until judgement day. "Wow". He didn't even care about being articulate, alpha-maleish. She was just _Wow_. When he managed to get over the shock, his arm directed the bunch of flowers to her. His brain was struggling to keep up with the rest of him. Because the rest of him just wanted to take her in his arms and take her to bed and rip off whatever dress/outfit she might be wearing.

"These are for you..." Her hand reached in his direction but did not grab the flowers. She grabbed his arm and pulled him inside as he seemed to be stuck to the floor.

"Thank you." She smelled the flowers and he thought, _boy, she liked them. She actually liked them_. "They smell wonderful." And he was still there, he knew it, looking like a bull staring at a palace. He just couldn't really master the ability to fantasise about her naked form and walk at the same time. It might have something to do with the painful erection saluting her merrily from inside his pants. He took a deep breath and remembered that he had rehearsed a compliment on her dress, not that he had noticed it yet. He took a deep, deep breath and looked at her, still standing there, amazingly patient with his moronic slowness. The dress in itself did not do her justice. It was a long midnight blue thing, clinging to her every curve, sweeping at her feet, sleeveless and very delicately wrapped around her neck. It would have looked almost modest if it weren't for the way it hugged her generous breasts, God helped him, her bra-free breasts, her very evidently exposed breasts by a pendant and chain hanging from her neck- right there in the middle of that vale where he wanted to just lay his head and rest. She was going to kill him. He was sure he was not going to get through the night without coming in his progressively tighter pants. _Man, she's a knockout_. He tried again.

"You look…" _What? What did she look? Gorgeous? Stunning? A wet dream on heels. All of the above, please._ "Perfect"

She laughed. A carefree, husky laughter. A precious laughter, she so seldom laughed.

"I'll get these in water. Then we can go." And she turned her back to him towards the kitchen. Her nearly decorous, diffident dress was backless, non existent between the strap that wrapped around her neck and the small of her back. Between the two points of material, there was nothing but her milky white skin. When she returned, he was still rooted to the same spot, his mouth still slightly agape. He took the wrap from her hands and draped it over her shoulders.

"Bones, I just need to do something before we leave, 'cause God knows that otherwise I'm gonna be thinking about it for the rest of the night. And mind you, this is not a_ let's stay in kind of thing_, though I really would love that, it's just that..." He gave up on the explanation. He just took her face in his hands and draped his lips over hers, softly, slowly, trying to hold back on the violence of the want, the greed for her that had assailed him from the moment she opened the door.

The momentary stunning effect of his kiss mellowed from the jolt to the gut to an overwhelming wave of pleasure that spread all through her and grabbed on to him, her knees turning to putty under his knowing kiss. _Aren't bones supposed to be solid?_

Booth had to break the kiss. He was out of breath but that wasn't why he stopped. Not even close. But she was standing there, in that barely-there dress and she was perfect and she deserved to show it off in the Jeffersonian gala. It wasn't right that he just moved in on her and plundered and messed up with a night she deserved.

Brennan did not want to let go. She wanted that kiss more than anything else. More than breathing. She held on to his face and tried to prolong the kiss. Booth nearly gave in. Nearly. And it took all his resolve just to take a step back. One single word to explain: _Later. Later_ he promised her. _Later_, he promised himself. They had the whole night ahead of them. Their whole lives if he was lucky and played his cards just right. Later.

****************

She filled the car. How else could he word it? There was that perfume of hers that hovered somewhere between the vanilla and the soft, soft baby power, like a velvet blanket over his acute sniper senses. Her earrings dangled refractions of blue into the road dark of the car. A present from him, because they were nearly as blue, nearly as crystalline as her eyes. The tall column of her neck, exposed by the hair pulled up loosely, promised delights for the evening. The rustling of the silk of her dress, invaded his hearing. Her hand draped over his over the gear shift, spreading her warmth onto him. But mostly, mostly it was her presence that filled the car. The glow of her, that intense personal glow that emanated from her on most occasions, was intensified, almost touchable, by the way she invaded his senses, by the way she looked, by the way she just _was_ tonight. He traded a night of torture for the memory of the way she looked right there and then.

**************************

Booth trailed behind her as they walked into the reception hall of the Jeffersonian. He wanted to bask in the glory of her naked back and absorb her perfume, do a study on the undulation of her hips and on the way she seemed to glide more than walk. All his self-assuredness was gone and he was reduced to a catatonic state of mind where nothing else in a room full of expensive clothes, jewellery and mostly old money made any concrete sense in his mind. Except for the one pervasive thought: _mine_. A greed so fierce he had to keep it on a leash every time someone approached her. That was why they were there: to mingle with the purses, to charm them into opening and raise funds for the work they did. But he'd be damned if it he cared about that now.

Angela materialised by his side. He noticed her because she very pointedly remained silent, though she was watching him like a hawk watches her prey. She was watching him watching Bones. Watching him mooning over Bones. And, most likely, taking the measure of how much of a pathetic moron he was at that very moment. He tried to get a grip on himself and smile at her.

"Nice dress." _See, nothing to it!_

"Thanks." Satisfied with the flawless nature of his interaction with Angela, he turned to locate Brennan once more, just so that he could breathe again. "You look nice in that dress too, Booth"

"Yeah? Thanks." Angela chuckled quietly. "What?"

"How long, Booth?" The almond eyes became serious. Booth sensed the change in tone and tried to concentrate on her. "How long what?"

Angela looked around her, judging the distance to the next group of people. She was out of earshot. Barely.

"You two. The item package. How long, Booth?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Uh, uh. Because I'm that stupid. Fine, don't tell me. But I thought Brennan would tell me. BBFs. That's what we're there for. I feel betrayed." Booth carved his nails into his palms, trying to hold on to his secret. He was a sucker for female tears. Always had been. He was Mrs. Booth-trained. Even a good sulk went a long way. So he held on to his tongue as best as he could. Enough that he wanted to shout loud and clear _Mine!_ to every single person who approached her. Very alpha male of him. He turned his own charm to Angela. He smiled and shrugged, impishly.

"Ok, Ok, I get it." And she walked way, a half smile brightening her lovely features.

*************************

Booth managed to stay at a reasonable distance from Brennan for the duration of the interlude before dinner. It helped that he had suckered Hodgins into trading places with him so that he could sit next to Brennan. He knew he wasn't fooling Angela. Not by a million miles. Every time his hand disappeared under the table to rub against Brennan's leg, Angela's eyebrows shot up in warning. A definitely amused warning, but a warning nonetheless.

By his side, Brennan pulled her hand down and did some touching of her own. She was clearly having fun multitasking the inane conversation of one of the major donors of the Jeffersonian's funds and pulling and tugging at his waistband and then progressively lowering her fingers, playing hide and seek with his now again throbbing erection. How was it possible that she could actually respond to the old man while doing all those amazing things to his dick? Her talents ran a whole gamut he didn't even suspect.

***********************

He thought dinner would never end. It was just impossible to try to and make a joke when Bones' hand would find his pants and torture him a little bit more whenever he had recovered enough to try and participate in the conversation. Or when she looked at him and lingered there, just looking into his eyes. He had heard the metaphor before, but the room just disappeared then fuzzed and melted into formless shapes and the only thing he was aware then, was the intensity of her regard, of all the silent messages between them. Later, they told each other. Later.

So when the tables were cleared, brandy and cigars- damned good cigars too- dispensed and the band took the stage to play for dancing couples, Booth felt his mission accomplished. He stood up, leaned forward and took her hand in his.

Brennan did not need further invitations. She eagerly stood and followed him to the small dance floor between the tables and the stage where the band was performing. Where everybody could see them. And yet, she could not seem to care that so many eyes were on them. She could not force herself to _dance_ with him. She just leaned into his body and _moved_ with him. Like they had moved together the night before, like they would move together tonight.

Booth put his hand where it had itched to be all night, in the small of her back- that place he had claimed for himself so long ago even before either of them knew that, one day, they would move like this together. The other hand just held hers parallel to her shoulder, leading her through the dance floor.

"Such a lovely couple. I bet they were dying to do that all night." The old lady with the white hair sitting at their table commented to the remaining party pointingat the dancing Booth and Brennan with her chin. The comment had all other heads at the table silently turning to fully appreciate the two figures.

"It's really not like that." But Angela's protest was only half-hearted. The old lady winked at her.

"If you say so, dear." But Angela knew that it was just polite agreement as she turned back to the dance floor to watch the couple progress in their dance. Were they aware that they had been dancing for two consecutive songs? Probably not.

***********************

Booth's hand at the small of Brennan's back ached to move upwards, to caress that naked skin. To please himself, to placate the fierce need, he did just so. His fingers first wiggled out of the satin of her dress, and his whole hand after. He felt her shivered reaction to him, to his advance. She laid her head on his chest and her soft baby powder and vanilla perfume enveloped him and awakened that fierce, wicked need again. The column of her neck, exposed to his want seemed to beacon him in for a kiss, the small, small hairs shining in the discreet light of the room. She was definitely not making things easy for him. As he pressed her further into him, as her body, warm and pliable, obeyed, his own responded, standing to attention, pressing at her between her legs. _Keep dancing, just keep dancing_. Because it seemed obscene that the crisp linen of his shirt and the silk of her dress should stand between them and his hands ached to remove the offending materials and take her- there and then, no matter what. He was tiring of being a good boy.

A couple approached them, dancing. The man made to interrupt them.

"Such a nice evening," and he continued dancing close to them. Booth looked to check if the dance floor was that crowded. It was not. "Let's swap," and both he and his partner seemed eager to do so. Brennan lifted her head and looked straight into the man's eyes.

"No!" And she rested her head on Booth's chest once again effectively closing the subject. The couple danced away, disconcerted.

"Atta girl!" Booth whispered in her ear, swelling with pride, making her hair stand on end and shivers run down her skin. He noticed. He noticed everything about her. "Are you cold?"

"Not if you hold me closer." So he did. And his hand on her back slid up just a little bit more and the distance between their bodies narrowed.

"You smell wonderful, Bones."

"You too, Booth. You smell very manly. It's the pheromones. They match my imprinted preferences. We are a pheromone match!" Her voice reverberated though his chest, straight across his wildly beating heart.

"I love it when you talk dirty to me, Bones" And he wanted to hug her, both arms around her and pull her to him and squeeze until he was happy that there was no more air that could be squeezed out between them. It took most all of his control not to, to just keep on holding her in that civilised way and keep on dancing.

"Oh." She looked at him, her lip caught between her teeth. Then she smiled, mischief and desire mingling in her summer blue eyes. "I hope you don't think I was being overly possessive when I didn't let you dance with that woman..."

"Didn't let me me?"

"Uh huh. Didn't let you. Not possessive. I was just being nice to you."

"Really?"

"Yes. I think you would have been embarrassed. You are incredibly hard right now. And because you are very well endowed- you genitals, I mean- she would have known immediately that you were aroused." She paused, looked at him for a reaction and continued after a second of hesitation. "I also did not want her to think that she was responsible for your erection."

"So you were jealous..."

"No, I... I... Yes," she sighed, "I was jealous. Also, your penis is pressing against me quite hard and I am thoroughly enjoying that sensation. It is very arousing." And she pulled slightly back to offer him a view of her breasts. "See, my nipples are erect as well. In fact, I now have all signs of sexual arousal. There's an increase of blood to my neck and face and my skin is warm, and my clitoris is starting to protrude- which is also very arousing in itself because of the material of my dress rubbing against it. I am very aroused right now," and she leaned back against his shoulder. "Do you want to stop dancing now, Booth?" _Dance? _Booth realised he was has frozen to the floor, incapable of moving, all the blood pooling to the centre of him and, clearly, making it impossible for his brain to multitask the dance and the sex thoughts cruising his mind. Bones' fault. Bones and her dirty talking.

"You have a strange notion of dirty talk, Bones"

"What's wrong with it?"

"Nothing. It's just very uh... I was going to say scientific, but... it's very you."

"Scientific? How would you say it less scientifically?"

"I don't know... something like... I don't know, Bones. Your way is brilliant"

"Hum... maybe I could say that your dick is pressing against my cunt and that I am completely turned on and want to fuck you know. Fuck your brains out." She pulled back again, looking at him with innocence, appreciating the effect of her words. "Would that suit you better?" Booth did not disappoint. He blushed furiously.

"It works too." And this time his hand slid down and cupped the top of her ass, pressing her clitoris/ cunt further into him and his erect penis/ dick.

"How did you get to be so fluent in that kind of language?"

"Oh, I found an erotic novel in Cam's office..."  
"You stole it?"

"Yes... I'm a bad, bad girl, Booth." _Oh dear God!_

"You are a very bad girl, Bones."

"And you ought to punish me"

"I ought to." _Was that his voice, that strangled sound that seem ripped from the pit of his stomach? _Then his brain switched on again.

"How can your... your..." And looked frantically around judging the distance to the nearest couple. "Your clitoris rub against your dress?" They were dangerously within earshot of the closest dancing couple, their elderly table neighbours.

"I am not wearing any underwear." Brennan announced in a tone that managed to combine casual and alluring and teasing and innocence. _Jeez._ The elderly table neighbour snapped her head up to look at them. His stomach did a curious manoeuvre between his mouth and his feet. He gave the old woman an apologetic smile and pulling Brennan by the hand nearly ran out of the dance floor through the french doors open into the magnificent Jeffersonian gardens.

Booth walked decided, long strides. His hand held Brennan by her wrist with propriety and the urgency of that wild need that burned through his whole body. Brennan followed, seemingly mild, seemingly subdued to his fierce need. Inside, she was burning. Had been so since the moment she opened the door to him.

_What am I looking for? A hotel room? Any place. Any place will do_. The only thing that mattered was that he get his hands on her and rip apart that dress and cupped her breasts and dived, plundered into her body, feel her heat, her wetness, her tight core pulsing around him, demanding that he gave himself to her. And he knew he wouldn't last long. That would be short and furious. Mean and violent. It had nothing to do with love, only primal need. A fuck, a very quick fuck. He was no longer master of himself, of his needs.

As he felt out of sight, concealed by the bushes and trees of the jungle like gardens, he stopped with a jerky movement and pulled her by the wrist still firmly held in his hand. Her heels caught on something that made her trip, but he instinctively held her up by her shoulders, like a rag doll. He pushed her against a tree and pressed her naked back against the hard bark. His mouth searched hers and forced it open, his breath coming in raged, hiccupped gasps of air. He used his whole body to imprison her against the sweet-smelling lime tree. His left hand grabbed her chin and pulled her face closer and closer to his, holding her firmly in place while he devoured and feasted on her flavour, a mixture of Bones and the good whiskey that they had shared at the table. She was inebriating. He had hoped that by the time he got to kiss her he would be in control of himself again, but he just felt hungrier and more desperate to possess her. His left hand pushed on her ass towards him, making her bend to his body, to his will. He rubbed his erection against her. If her clit was _protruding_, he would rub it until kingdom come. She was going to pay for the night long teasing, for smelling so lovely she overtook his senses, for smiling, for looking so perfect he would never be able to forget this night. For so thoroughly being Bones. His hand clawed at the skirt of her dress and pulled up and up until he reached the skin of her thighs. He circled the generous roundness of her leg and with one more forceful kiss felt her legs opened to his invading hand, revealing the intensity of her own arousal. She was wet. She was soaking wet. His fingers slid inside her easily and she moaned her pleasure as she bent further towards into the tree, as she peaked her first orgasm and rode his hand ashamedly, her eyes opening as she came.

"Fuck me Booth. Fill me. Come for me."

Adrenaline is an amazing thing. Or whatever. But not really knowing how he did it, his fly was open and his dick was free. Maybe it was her. He'd never know. But by the time he made her spin on her heels once more and pressed her face first against the tree, by the time he raised her skirt and pushed his throbbing hard on inside her, his fly was miraculously open, there was no barrier to the depths of her body. He pounded into her, short furious strokes, egged on by her throaty moans, by her long _eyeses_ and _ahs_. As she propped her hands against the bark of the tree, he felt more purchase against her. His hands free, the non-existent back of the dress was an invitation to cup her breast he took without hesitation. His fingers found her nipples, pearly hard. His palm rubbed against them, rhythmically drawing moans from her. A pinch to each nub had her screaming _yes,_ _oh god yes_ and ripped a second orgasm from her, leaving her breathless.

"Again, Bones." And because he demanded it, because his hands over hear breasts, over her heart were still kneading her flesh, because he was still pounding her into the sweet fragrance of the lime tree, because he was her Booth, her body said yes and gathered once more.

"Come for me Booth!" she moaned.

"Then say it Bones." His breath was ragged and out of control, a hiccup, a sigh or a gasp. "Say it now!"

"I love you, Booth." And that was all he needed. He came in a violent jerk drawn from him by the sound of her raspy voice wrapped around his favourite words in the whole wide world. _I love you_.

It took him nearly forever to catch his breath, to assess his surroundings, to return to the reality of that perfumed garden. His only reality was Bones, his only sight, his only smell. His blood was pumping loudly in his ears, in his pulse and he could feel it coursing through his veins. He was still inside her, still hard, his left hand still inside her dress, over her breast, her thumping heart, the right against the tree, holding himself up. The skin of her back wet and sticky against the skin of his chest through his partially open shirt. And he had been rough on her. Violent.

"Bones?" She moaned his name. "I'm sorry Bones." Her left hand left the safety of the tree and held his hand over her wildly beating heart.

"Why?" He made to move. He wanted to check her for bruises and cuts. She did not allow it. "Say it, Booth"

"I'm so_"

"No Booth. _It._ Say _it_" _Oh God, how could he be that lucky?_

"I love you Bones."

_***************_

_The only scientific constant is that every thing changes. But this I know: that I will remember this night forever. That I will remember Booth the way he was tonight until the day I die. The diffident and the assertive, the loving and the sexy, the rough and the gentle Booth- all in one night. The way his shirt hugged his body- like a caress, light as a feather, the way his eyes shone in the darkness of the garden, like beacon guiding my way. The heat of his kiss, the firmness of his body as he filled me, as he speared through me, the absolute sense of completeness when he branded me as his. The way he smelled of fresh laundry and whiskey and cigars. The way he apologised for any imagined hurt. They way he says _I love you._ And means it with actions._

_The way he was so genuinely the alpha male without the shiny baubles._

_There are nights meant to be remembered. Nights so perfect that they are a wonder in themselves. And one day, when, if, I don't which yet, this constant change dictates that I find myself alone again, I know that I will conjure up this memory of Booth with daisies in his hands, and the way his smell mixed with lime trees, the way he looked, the way he was tonight and feel whole again. _


	11. Bad Things

**Author's note: God, I love this song by Jace Everett. You may know it as the theme for True Blood, another of my favorite shows.**

**Now, the thing about this one shot: it fully deserves an M rating. If you are averse to a bit of kink, a bit rough sex, stay away. You have been warned.**

**Thank you to MickeyBoggs for the revision to the chapter. **

**Enjoy!**

**Jane**

I wanna do bad things with you.

When you came in the air went out.  
And every shadow filled up with doubt.  
I don't know who you think you are,  
But before the night is through,  
I wanna do bad things with you.

I'm the kind to sit up in his room.  
Heart sick an' eyes filled up with blue.  
I don't know what you've done to me,  
But I know this much is true:  
I wanna do bad things with you.

When you came in the air went out.  
And all those shadows there filled up with doubt.  
I don't know who you think you are,  
But before the night is through,  
I wanna do bad things with you.  
I wanna do real bad things with you.  
Ow, ooh.

I don't know what you've done to me,  
But I know this much is true:  
I wanna do bad things with you.  
I wanna do real bad things with you

*********************

It was a male strip joint slash male brothel. It was supposed to be a classy place so the _artists_- as they were called- dressed in a version of a tux. A shirtless version of a tux. Booth looked at himself in the mirror. He looked good. He looked damned good. Maybe he should reconsider his choice of career. Plus, he had heard that these guys made very good money in a very easy job. If only they were not dropping like flies at the hands of _mystery woman_. Bones' brain trust had come up with a five foot eleven fake redheaded woman as the probable killer. But all they had was circumstantial. So he volunteered. Well, Bones had volunteered him. If he didn't know any better, he would say that she couldn't wait to see him in that tux. Well, in your face, Bones. He looked frickin' amazing.

.

Brennan loved an undercover operation. It was as if the disguise- any disguise, really- elicited her fantasies and desires, any and all actions. She loved the adrenaline rush. And she had seen enough junkies to know she was becoming one. A junkie for adrenaline. Scientific spirit that she was, though, she had to play with the theory that it wasn't just the need for adrenaline. She had been to every major natural disaster aftermath, every major war theater in the world. And nothing, but nothing, got her adrenal glands to secrete so copiously as did an undercover mission. What was the variable in the experiment? Simple: Booth. So she had to admit that she was becoming a junkie for Booth. She smiled internally when she looked at herself in the mirror and judged the result. The dress fitted her like a glove, a deep shade of blue that made it look rich and classy, a cut over her right thigh that made her look like she was gagging for sex. The jewelery made her look like she could afford any male in that club that she wanted. Booth's jaw would certainly drop when he saw her there. He would probably have a seizure when he saw her there. He had made her promise. It had been hard lying to him. She wasn't a good liar, but the occasion called for it. Besides, she was the one who could better identify the killer. And he should know that. Eat you heart out, Booth, I look amazing.

.

Booth leaned against the bar. The music in the club was lurid and suggestive. He tried to gently dissuade the many females that were looking for his company. Well, looking to pay for his services. It did wonders for his ego. But he needed to keep an eye on the door for a woman corresponding to the description Bones had given him. It was all going relatively well. So far none of the women had been too insistent and the price tag he was sporting on his sleeve- another of the club's trade marks- had been deterrent enough for the more audacious. It was turning out very well. Until he saw the tall woman in the dark blue dress walking in through the door. He would kill her. He would personally put his hands around her pretty neck and squeeze until he was happy that she would no longer do this to him. And just what exactly was _this_, the annoying little voice of his conscience asked him. Was it the rage burning inside him because she had disobeyed him (like she would ever just "obey") or that increasing pressure in his balls, in fact, in his whole crotch area? He tried to take his eyes off her cleavage. And man, thank God she didn't usually show that much cleavage otherwise he would have already had a quadruple bypass fitted to his poor heart. And what was it with the heels? They were high. They were really _fuck me _high. And they made her legs look like they went on forever and remind him at the top of her legs there was heaven. And then for his benefit, oh he was sure she was doing it on purpose, she turned on her heel and graced him with a view of her bottom, her glorious bottom. They would have to have a little conversation about that particular dress. How was he supposed to concentrate now? Concentrate on the door, that is, because he could concentrate on her for the rest of the whole damned night. He signaled the bartender for a double shot of Jack. The liquid fire running down his throat helped soothe his nerves. As did the promise he made himself- she would pay.

.

Brennan knew, the moment she felt his eyes on her, that she was going to be in trouble. He had murder in his eyes. Was it that she was there against his orders or the dress? She hoped it was the dress but would bet on her little escapade against his wishes. She walked past him to the bar and gave him a measuring look. Wow. That tux was... was... wow. She felt the heat rising in her cheeks, in her neck; she felt her nipples perk up against the velvet of her dress. She gave him a measuring look, head to toe as if she were admiring a rug in a market. Then she moved to the bar and signaled the bartender for a double shot of Jack. Beer just wouldn't do. Across the room a young blond thing, couldn't be more than 25, spotted her. Hair perfectly arranged around his smiley face, a sun bed tan and gym grown muscles. He did not look bad. Not at all. A bit artificial, that was all. And he smiled at her and ran his hand from his neck across his naked chest to his belt. That tux was a real asset. When he was sure he had her attention, his hand grabbed his crotch, the signal unmistakable. He was as good as any, she thought. So she ordered him a drink and walked past Booth to sit on one of the many couches spread around the room.

.

Booth felt the air being sucked out of him. Her perfume lingered behind her when she walked past. His knuckles turned white around the glass as the little prick he'd seen eying her as a mark across the room picked up the drink she had ordered for him and followed her to the couch. He hoped and prayed that the killer would come in and find him fast. He just wanted to pick Bones up and take her home- where he'd proceed to show her just how displeased he was. It was going to be a long night. Either that or, please, someone start a bar fight because then he could just start punching his way towards the boy- because he was nothing but a boy- and beat the shit out of him just for daring to touch Bones, let alone grope her and have the audacity of running his hand up the cut of her shameless dress. And what was that? Why didn't she do something? The kid was practically over her, kissing her, whispering- at least he hoped it was just whispering- in her ear and she gave that sexy laughter that had no place being laughed like that in that idiot's presence let alone to him. She ought to be kicking his sorry ass for daring to touch her. The boy should be on the floor writhing in pain. Instead, his heart was the one writhing in pain, burning the green fury of jealousy. He was saved by the bell- in that instance, by a tall redheaded woman that approached him.

.

Across the bar, Brennan perked up. That woman approaching Booth, she could be it. All the markers were there. It could be- it probably was the killer they were after. She hadn't expected that, those sinuous curves, the generous neckline of the dress, the undulating curves of her breasts under the silk of the red dress that should never have looked good on her. When the woman's red nails ran the distance between Booth's neck and navel, Brennan was entirely sure that she had spotted the killer. Why was Booth smiling at her? Why wasn't he just slapping the cuffs on her and searching her for concealed weapons? Why did he look like he was enjoying himself? Had he no conception of just how much danger he was in? Apparently not, because his finger trailed the woman's bare shoulder all the way down to her hand and, once there, took her fingers delicately in his and kissed her hand. For far longer that it should have been. The woman was melting like ice cream in August. Honey trap indeed. She hadn't understood the meaning of the sentence until that very moment. She wanted to take Booth out of there, beat the hell out of him for good measure just because he was being so reckless as to flirt with a killer that had already decided that he was her next victim. He was flirting with disaster- and right in front of her. And he would pay for that. Trying to control her anger and the boiling in her blood as Booth was led by the killer to a sofa just opposite hers, she pulled the boy way from her and was ready to march over to Booth, arrest the woman herself and then just deck him and vent off her anger. Providence intervened. The man, feeling his grip on Brennan slip, went down on his knees at her feet. Around them, indubitably sex moans were raising in volume. It was a policy of the club that the _visitors_ were entitled to a free sample and he intended to give the beautiful brunette a sample she would not forget. His tongue and lips traced little wet lines up her thighs. Not bad- for a boy.

.

Booth sat in his own couch facing Bones. It was probably a mistake, because right there and then, seeing her being groped like that by a boy- and enjoying it was more than he could take. He did not object when the suspect straddled him and nestled in the crook of his neck.

.

Brennan cringed. That crook of Booth's neck was hers to nestle in. When he hugged her, it was there that she hid her face. Her hands reached for the boy's hair and pulled him towards her.

.

_Oh God, give me strength._ What the hell was she thinking? Those were his legs to kiss. And was that little idiot smelling her most intimate parts? Oh, he was throwing his ass in jail for solicitation and whatever else he could think of. He grabbed the red head and ran his hands across her torso. His fingers found her nipples and rubbed.

.

Across the room, Brennan felt a curious phenomenon: Booth's hands were on her breasts, not on that cheap imitation of a woman. Her hands reached up from the boy's hair to her breasts and she massaged them through the dress helping Booth's desired fingers.

.

The gesture did not go unnoticed by Booth. He registered the flushed cheeks and the blue eyes caught on his and he knew that she was aroused. His hands no longer groped the breasts of a killer. Even at the distance of a whole smoke filled, loud room, it was Bones that he touched and Bones that he smelled and Bones that he kissed._ Come for me baby_, he mouth at her.

.

_Yes._ She'd come for him. He just needed to say the magic words. And then the killer got up and slipped Booth a number of bills and that was what she'd been dreading the whole night. Booth would be alone with a cold-hearted killer and he would be in danger. She took out a stack of one hundred dollar bills from her cleavage. She didn't even count. She just handed them out to the man. He took her hand and led her to the private rooms upstairs- right behind Booth. Suddenly she was in a rush. The man smiled to himself. She was going to be good. Explosive. He might even throw in a freebie, just for his own gratification.

.

Joe prided himself in being a pro. He was clean, nice to his clients and he had a huge repertoire guaranteed to please all walks of life. Nothing much shocked him any more. He was savvy. But when he tried to lead the gorgeous brunette to his appointed room, he was surprised. She nearly decked him and rushed past to the door just closing behind a couple- the new guy and a gorgeous red head he'd seen earlier. It shocked the hell out of him when he heard all hell breaking loose inside that room. And it froze his blood when she shouted "You are under arrest, put the gun down". Fearing for his own freedom, he ran, ran as fast as could down the fire exit. If the cops were doing a sweep on this place, he wanted out. The last thing he heard was a dull thud on the floor and spark of red hair spilling to the floor.

.

Lena had been born and raised a good girl. Sometime, somewhere, her mind had fractured. There was a part of her that knew that what she was doing was not good. But there was a part, a very dominant part of her that rejoiced with every kill. Why male whores? No way to tell. Shrinks could probably tell her, explain it all to her. But never was she as much in control, as much as the seductress she'd always wanted to be as when she put on a sexy dress and went _pout hunting_, as she referred to her nights. She hadn't even been trying not to get caught. She hadn't even worried about concealing any evidence. It had just happened that way. And somehow, as time when by, her fractured mind had taken it as a sign that it was okay what she was doing because no one had caught up with her. So she was surprised when that woman entered the room she was about to have sex in with an Adonis and even more surprised when she had yelled "You are under arrest". It had probably been her flight instinct taking over, because, no matter how hopeless she had known the situation to be, she had still attempted to escape- which had earned her a tumble at high speed towards the carpet. _Oh wel_l, she thought, it was nice while it lasted.

.

Booth was livid. He was furious. Bones had just overstepped the mark and she would have to be put in her place. What the hell was she thinking, marching into the room like that and arresting a gun carrying killer without so much as a bullet proof vest or a gun of her own? In fact, why was she even there? He had told her and told her to stay home, to stay out of that. He forgot about the suspect on the floor and he pulled her violently by the arm against a wall. _What the hell were you thinking?_

.

She hated people in her face like that. It was an invasion of her personal space and not even the fact that he was Booth excused him. Especially not when she was so furious she was actually seeing red wavering lines. So she pushed him way from her with a violent jerk of her arms.

.

The back up team chose that moment to burst into the room. Someone picked up the suspect from the floor and walked out. All the others were slightly embarrassed and self conscious. The energy in the air fooled no one. Those two would either kill each other or fuck each other's brains out. Either way, it was private. They walked out one by one and the door closed behind the last one.

.

"You had no right. I told you to stay home!" Booth was so upset he could hardly think straight, let alone get into an argument with her. "You come in here without any protection and just confront a killer. A serial killer. A killer that I'm about to arrest. What the hell is wrong with you?" He yelled so close to her face she couldn't even turn her face.

.

Brennan thought vaguely that he must have been truly upset, because his pupils were dilated and that vein in his forehead was pulsating very, very fast. And yet, she could not bring herself to even care. "Who the hell are you to talk? You walk into a room alone with a killer- not even a bullet proof vest." Her tone was rising menacingly and she was starting to resent the prison of his arms against the wall. She pushed back. He resisted. "And your hands were all over her. It hadn't occurred to me that you'd be enjoying this assignment quite so much." And the more she thought about it, the more she visualized his hands running through the red bodice of the dress of the other woman- no matter that it was on the job- the more irked she felt and it was as if the anger was feeding on itself like a snow ball turning into an avalanche.

"It was an assignment. An assignment, get it, Bones?"

"An assignment you were enjoying far too much. I saw it, I saw your gait when she pulled you up to bring you here. You were turned on by her, you rat bastard"

"Can you blame me?" He should have known better. In fact, he did, because the moment the words were out he knew it. It was not anticipation, but certainty. Brennan raised her hand and landed it in a solid slap to his face with a satisfying smacking sound.

"Bastard." And she tried to wiggle free of his hard pinning hands. The more she struggled, the stronger was his hold on her. Her knee jumped up trying to catch him in his balls. He had anticipated the movement and evaded her.

"You're one to talk. You think I didn't see that piece of shit all over you? You think I didn't see you getting wet for him? I could smell you from where I was"

"That would be one of your miracles, with the way she smelled, with the way she was all over you." This time Brennan succeeded in freeing her wrists. Payback was coming. She used her leg to unbalance Booth and pressed him against the wall. He humored her for a second. _Let her think that she can hold me back. _

"I can still smell him on you, Bones, but you like that, don't you, you like the choice and the games." When he tried to break free of her he found it was not quite so easy. "I saw him crawling up your dress." He grunted in effort, pushing at her. "I saw him fingering you" and with the thought propelling him, he broke free and tossed her against the wall with a violent, angry thump. "Tell me, Bones, did you enjoy that? And he pinned her hands above her head. Have you been missing that kind of meaningless sex?" He ducked as she tried to bite him and his hands only held her more securely. His now free hand dived under her dress.

Brennan fought against his invading hand. She could see the anger and the resolve in his eyes. She couldn't quite answer that. Not now. She was too mad. His hand found her underwear and pulled at it violently, ripping the delicate material from her in a single tug. Her legs wobbled under his strength. It was getting difficult to breathe. She tried to push at him but Booth's finger slid inside her cruelly, forcefully. And it felt too fucking good. She bit back a moan of pleasure. And another when his thumb found her clit and pressed it. His mouth moved into hers. He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to invade her mouth and obliterate any traces of that low life scum bag who had dared to touch her. She avoided the kiss. She wanted it. She wanted to kiss him. But she wanted it on her terms. This was too much like him winning. And she be damned if she'd allow it. When he tried again, she made to bite him. His hand with the probing finger held her in place without breaking the rhythm of his finger fucking and held her against the wall. God, she felt damned good, all wet and wanting and, okay, maybe not quite willing- yet, but give him time and she would.

Brennan bided her time, trying to resist the assault of his probing finger, fighting back the urge and the waves of pleasure that coursed through her. In one moment, she seized her opportunity and her hands slid free. She pushed Booth and without losing their balance, they tumbled onto the carpeted floor, Brennan on top, her body ablaze.

"Maybe I did enjoy the meaningless sex. So what? You certainly seemed to enjoy yourself. Where were all your convictions when you were almost inside her- in front of everybody? How did her lunch taste? Because your tongue was all the way down her throat, Booth. Did you enjoy that? Was she better than me?" And her mouth captured his in a cruel kiss, her teeth biting into his lip until he gasped, and her knee pressed just a little more between his legs, preventing him from moving under penalty of injury to his manhood.

"I hated you Booth. I still do. How come you kissed her like that?" and her mouth probed and found his ear and bit once more there. Her hand traveled down until she found the easy opening of his pants and her hand slid inside and grabbed his penis. "How could you have your hands all over her? You smell like her, like cheap perfume, like death." And her hand pumped him hot and tight and he gasped in surprise.

"You volunteered me, Bones." Booth struggled to get his voice out of his throat. He would not concede her victory this easy. "You're wet, I could feel you. Are you wet because of him, Bones?" Her hand cupped his sac and she squeezed making him wince. No. She wasn't wet because of the kid. She was wet because of him, Booth, because even with two people and a room in between them, it had been his hands over her that she had craved and his mouth on her mound that she had wanted and his smell that she coveted.

"No." Brennan surrendered.

Booth released his hands from her and got a grip on her hips and swiftly inverted the positions, pinning her underneath him. "Tell me who you were wet for, Bones" and his hands ripped at the cut on her dress.

"No."

"No?" And he slid between her legs. "Tell me that you were wet for me Bones. I saw you were ready to come. Like you come for me every time. Tell me Bones." And his hand released his dick from the confines of the all the clothes in between them. "Tell me." And he raised her up to him with a hand under her ass. Brennan's breathing was all over the place, shallow and deep, ragged hiccups and deep sighs. There was fire in her eyes. She hated him at that moment, he could tell. He waited for her answer.

Brennan needed him inside her. She needed him as fiercely as she fought him.

"YOU!"

"What Bones?"  
"You! You told me to come for you. I was wet for you." And that was all it took. Booth plunged inside her, not gentle, not kind, not lovable. Just urgent animal greed. And for every single one of his greedy plunges, she met him with a thrust of her own. She wanted to be inside and all over him, all at the same time. Her mouth clamped on his shoulder and her teeth sank there, giving her some anchor to reality, because she was about to lose her north and any sense of direction of where she was coming from and where she was going, there was only his body plunging inside her and that fever raging inside her like a fire, an anger so absolute that she could not possibly hold in check if she stayed still.

"Bones," he grunted in her ear, and his mouth clamped around her neck, kissing her just below her ear and getting lost in the heat of the anger, his lips clamped shut and just sucked at her skin because it was the only way that he would not lose himself in her. He rolled her atop him and looked her in the eyes. Giddy on that momentary surrender of his, Brennan rode him, forcefully, whole heartedly, getting lost in each of her plunges as if she was the one filling him, but feeling complete each time she felt him against her depths, pressing, huge, all consuming. She had lost any semblance of orientation and there was only his face and his eyes and told him, "Don't you ever do this to me again, don't you ever get yourself in danger. I hate you for this Booth, I hate you," and red hot tears stung her eyes and all she could do was plunge and withdraw because it dulled the pain of knowing she could have so easily lost him that night.

"It's OK, though, Bones, because I love you. You're OK to hate me, baby," and his mouth closed over hers and this time, the kiss was slow and tentative and his tongue worked to sooth her and his arms pulled her to his chest and their hearts were beating in tandem. Brennan choked a sound, somewhere between a sob and laughter. Booth raised from the floor to a sitting position and cradled her ass in his hand. With his free one, he cradled her face and he saw that she was close, so close, that he could almost taste it; he could feel her muscles tensing up around him and squeezing him in the most delicious of hugs. "Come for me Bones. Come for me baby," She wanted, and though she had been tethering that line, she couldn't, it wasn't just right, it wasn't the moment yet. Not before. Only after.

"Then tell, me Booth. Oh God, please tell me!" And the despair in Brennan's voice did it for him, pushed him to the edge of the cliff and there was just one more thing.

"Come for me, _my love_. Come. For. Me"

"Yes." Her muscles started to quaver around him. "Oh God, yes, Booth!" And one final plunge and Booth jumped over the edge of that precipice and his seed shot hot and greedy into her, giving her that exquisite final wave she'd never known before she could experience just from feeling a man's pleasure. Then she collapsed onto his chest and was cradled in his arms as he slid to a laying position on the floor and just stayed there, enjoying the feel of her in his arms, sweaty and breathless.

.

.

"Don't you ever do this to me, Booth."

"Next time we investigate and need a honey trap, I'll send a single agent," Booth smiled, making light of the fear in her words

"No, Booth. That's not what I meant and you know it."

"It's my job, Bones. I can't not do it." And his hand stroked her hair nearly as much to soothe her as to soothe himself.

"Then you can bet that I'll find a way to be around." And she hugged him just a little tighter.

"You'll have my back, you mean?" She nodded. His back and all the rest of him.

"Yeah, pretty much." Booth considered that for a moment. Then his hands started roving up and down her, the bodice of her dress and tracing her cleavage and tempting bottom. He ground himself into her and Brennan felt not without some trepidation that he was hardening inside her again.

"Not in a dress like this. Or I will have to punish you." And that was just fine with her.


	12. Drive

**Author's note: This story is for who suggested this song- which, by the way is posted on my blog (See link on my profile). Lucie, I hope I did it justice and that you are not disappointed. **

**A big thank you to my lovely Beta, MickeyBoogs. **

**PS- make sure no one is reading over your shoulder on this!**

**Jane**

Drive

If you want this, you're gonna have to ask  
nicely please  
yeah if you want this  
you're gonna have to ask me

Whatever you want  
I'll give it to you  
I'll give it to you slowly  
'till you're just begging me to hold you  
ya whatever you want  
whatever you want  
but you're gonna have to ask me

I'll hold you up  
and drive you all night  
I'll hold you up  
and drive you baby 'till you feel the daylight  
I'll hold you up  
and drive you all night  
I'll hold you up  
and drive you 'till you feel the daylight  
that's right

In the kitchen  
in the shower  
and in the back seat of my car  
I'll hold you up  
in your office  
preferably during business hours  
'cause you know how I like it when there's people around  
and I know how you like it  
yeah I know how you like it  
I know how you like it when I tease you for hours  
(…)

.

Agent Charlie Burns loved his desk in the bullpen of the Bureau. That desk had the privacy of a wall behind him and a wide view of all the comings in goings of the office if he only looked slightly sideways. Plus, he was close enough to Agent Booth's office (his own hero slash god slash man crush) to be of assistance when the need arose, bringing him that much closer to the promotion he so desperately sought these days. On days like today, his lovely desk was further enhanced by the rewarding view of Agent Booth's favorite visitor- Dr. Brennan. Charlie lived for these days when she came in to visit. She brightened his days when she spotted him and said _Hi Charlie_ in that old whiskey voice of hers. She looked as glamorous as the Hollywood goddesses on the pictures his girlfriend collected with religious fervor. And today was no exception, with that raincoat buttoned up and singed to her body as a second skin. Some guys had all the luck.

.

.

_Hang ups! _She'd said he had hang ups! Pft! Yeah, okay, he had hang ups. Was that so terrible? He didn't like talking about female body parts and female bodily functions but that was all. Right? Well, there was also giving birth- heck, what man was comfortable with that? Some things were best kept private, right? Those were not _hang ups_! Hell, he was a stud. He had made women meow in his day. Back when he didn't know her, because since that day the only woman he wanted making animal noises in his bed- and everywhere else, really, was Bones. And God as his witness, he had waited for her. Really, really waited- mostly until his balls had turned blue and were threatening to quit and move on to a better job. But hang ups? _Hang ups?!?!?! _No. And by God, it was about time she found out what he was made of. Then they'd discuss _hang ups_.

.

.

He planned and plotted. Carefully. Ah, the things he'd do to her. He held on to his belt buckle and pulled on it, trying to relieve the pressure building in his nether regions. He would.... and the image formed in his mind, more visual then words. And then he would.... he pulled resolutely at the belt buckle again. He could hardly wait for that night. Just you wait, Temperance Brennan. Just you wait.

.

.

He didn't think much of it when she walked in through his office door. Of course he liked seeing her there. He liked seeing her everywhere and his day always got better just because of it. But they had a case and those were standard office hours and the bullpen outside was crowded- nothing unusual- so he just assumed that she had something new when she sat on the chair opposite his desk. Their normal playing ground in that office was an arm chair slightly out of sight and always well after working hours with the door firmly locked and the blinds drawn. He pulled once more at his belt buckle because the pressure was building again and he was afraid he _might just have a stroke or something_. She hadn't bothered with such details as closing the blinds or locking the door so she had- surely- something _else_ on her mind.

He waited for her to say something. That they had something new, some new angle, some new evidence, but she remained quiet, just studying him, her hands in the pockets of her raincoat. There were still some droplets sliding on the smooth material.

"Why don't you take that of, Bones?" He knew it then that he had walked smack into a trap. He knew it because she gave this smile of triumph she always gave him when he walked- or waltzed- into one of her delightful traps. But this was working hours, for god sakes, she wouldn't dare.

But she did. She crossed her legs, her long, long legs in a move that would do Sharon Stone proud, revealing that there was precious little more than black stockings underneath that raincoat. Oh, he was screwed. Or would be, in any case. She gave him a malevolent smile confirming his suspicions as her hands descended from her neck to the buttons of the raincoat sliding them open one by one- how did she do that so smoothly, anyway- exposing a black bra that left practically nothing to the imagination.

"Bones" he choked on the words "what are you doing?"  
"Well, you told me to take it off."

"I changed my mind. Please don't."

Her mouth twisted in a knowing smile and she slid one more button open and the raincoat opened to her stomach, skin pale and inviting and he was torn between kneeling at her feet and just do whatever it was she had in mind for him or getting a blanket and wrapping her in it and taking her home in handcuffs for public disturbance of his peace of mind. That ought to be a crime. And then, quite possibly, committing her to an institution because what she was doing was just a mental case. Charlie saved him the painful decision when he came in with a file in his hand. Whatever else might be said about Charlie, he was sharp, because it took him less than second of Booth looking flushed at a smiling Dr. Brennan to pick up on the mood in the room and on how it was not a good idea to walk even one more step further into the room.

"I can come back later…"

"You do that, Charlie," Booth managed to say

"Should I lock the ah... door?" He was getting distracted because from the corner of his eye he could see Dr. Brennan, the immovable, haughty Dr. Brennan fiddling with the buttons of her raincoat and though he was no judge- and God how he wished he was- with sex on her mind. _You dog_, he thought of Booth with ever more respect. _One day_, God, one day he'd have that magnetism- and that luck.

"Don't bother, Charlie," Brennan said in a voice that to Charlie was something between liquid sin, hot chocolate and good whiskey. He wanted to stay there- even if just to hear that voice again, but he picked up his feet and left. _You dog!_

"Now you gave Charlie spank bank material for a year!"  
"Does it bother you?" and she pulled on the belt of her raincoat.

The silky material slid open and Booth felt sucker punched. _Oh God!_ He grunted something by way of reply, unable to move from his chair, the tightness on his balls unbearable- and that, he was sure, was just the beginning of it. "Please, Bones, you're killing me here!" She laughed, a loose, grand, carefree laughter, stood and walked towards his chair, the movement opening the raincoat and offering him a complete view of her, from the necklace hanging between her breasts and her black bra to the black lacy panties and garters holding the black stockings up. He knew when he was beat. What came next was just a token protest. "Please Bones, the door is open..."

"Is it?" and she sat on his desk facing him, her right leg hooking around his right one- and giving him a show of what delights he knew to be hidden beneath the black panties. His hands were clasped tightly in his lap, trying to resist the urge to touch her, the heat he knew was emanating from her, biting his tongue because pretty soon he'd be begging her to taste her.

"And it's office hours- the office is full of busybodies..." her finger twirled the pendant between her breasts but she didn't interrupt. "...and huh..." Her right hand reached for his tie and caressed it softly.

"And..." She prompted.

"And..." Booth tried to continue and found he had lost his train of thought.

"And you think someone might come in." Booth assented with his head, happy that she got the point. "So you better pray no one does" She took his hand and showed his finger the way around the garter closest to him. "Are you really going to pass all this up just because you have hang ups about sex?" He wanted to say yes. He wanted to be strong and stand his ground like a man. But between what his head wanted and what his dick wanted was the space of a flimsy lacy pair of panties and a garter belt. And what was it with the fuck me pumps? She ran the pointy tip deftly up and down his crotch and he'd be lucky if his pants didn't burst. Or if if he didn't spontaneously combust under that touch. Temperance Brennan would be the death of him. If only the door was locked... But his tie was already in her hand and she was pulling at it and then the knot just came undone in her hands as if she had some magical powers over Windsor knots... and even his clothes had a mind of his own.

His hand cupped his achy crotch and though he didn't really expect it, he was still shocked there was no relief in that action, nor in readjusting his position on that chair. Her legs spread a further inch. She was wet. Oh Good God, she was wet and he was screwed.

"Bones, please," he pleaded- though he was not sure if it was for a break or for more of her. She seemed to interpret it as the latest.

"Then ask for it, Booth." And what could he do but obey? What could he do but ask, beg, implore if she wished it so?

"Bones..." But her hand was opening his shirt and her feisty finger was dispensing little jolts of electricity through his skin. "Please..."  
"Please what, Booth?" And the tip of her shoe teased his cock into surrender. "Tell me what you want me to do."

Technically, he should want her to go home- with him preferably- but there was something about that black shoe of hers- and that was not even mentioning garters and stockings and, _holy crap_, her being naked in his office, sitting on his desk- during office hours- that was making difficult- well, impossible- to think of a good reason to send her away. But his body had desires of its own and his body wanted to do things to her that he didn't even know the name for.

"What's wrong Booth? Are those hang ups of yours getting in your way?"

There is only one metaphor for what happened next: a curveball. Booth's brain snapped into attention when she teased him about his hang ups- _yet again_- and threw in a curveball into the equation. He pulled her into his lap making her gasp, deftly took the handcuffs from his belt and placed them on her wrists looping the chain through the arm of his chair. Through the kissing- or should he say _devouring_- taking place, she only noticed the cuffs when they clicked shut around her wrists, rendering her nearly helpless. She gave him a naughty smile, a challenge, really, sort of _now that you've got me, what do you intend on doing with me_ sort of thing and bit his bottom lip to make her point. Her smile was still victorious when his finger found her center and feathered caresses there. She thought that she was still in control because he had all but forgotten about the unlocked door and the bullpen full of coworkers and was responding to her provocation. But then he moved from under her and sat on the desk as she had done before leaving her in an awkward sitting position.

"What I want, Bones, is to teach you that this is a working environment. That if you come in here to tease me, you'll have to suffer the consequences."

"Oh." Her mouth was set in a knowing smile, a winning pout. Another challenge. She could see the bulge in his pants, was sure that she still had the upper hand on the situation. Booth smiled. He was going to prove her otherwise. He removed his jacket and that gesture was reminiscent of his aggressive stance in the interrogation room just down the hall. He approached her like he would a suspect- slightly rising on his feet, counting on his impressive build to dominate her. He swiveled the chair to face him and put one arm slowly, ominously, menacingly, on each side of the back of the chair. He knew he was the only thing she could see- no less because he was the only thing she wanted to see. But that was the understanding. He leaned to her face and whispered while descending close to her face. _Now you're going to pay for all the teasing_ and continued on his way down fully aware that her skin was a map of goosebumps raised by his voice. He smiled to himself. That was more like it. The male in him ached for domination and right there and then he saw no reason to fight the instinct. He could smell her, her arousal, her skin, the dregs of her subtle perfume. _What do you want me to do to you, Bones​?_ And even the whispering of his voice so close to her skin that it could have made her come sitting there on that chair- if only she didn't know that the best was yet to come. Booth was big on pleasure delaying. She twisted on the chair, restrained by the handcuffs. What did she want? Everything. She only wanted everything. She wanted to suck him, she wanted him to go down on her, to smell him, touch him, feel the hardness of him and his sweat and heat and fever of when they made love. God, she wanted all of him all he time. Was it too greedy?

"I want you to touch me, Booth."

"Then you need to ask me nicely."

"Booth!" She was struggling now, against the restraints, against the chair and against the heat rising in her. He loosened the tie and opened the top button of his prim shirt. _Oh God! _"Booth!" she writhed in her chair and the raincoat whispered her anxiety.

His finger touched her lips in a silencing gesture.

"Nicely, Bones." And his finger traced the contours of her lips awakening the need for a kiss, especially when his lips were so close she could all but taste them, feel the heat from his skin seeping into hers. Brennan nodded. She just couldn't find her voice, such was the power he had over her body, over her will, over her mind.

"Please, Booth, touch me!" He did and he didn't. His tie caressed her skin because his body danced above her, just slightly out of reach and his knees carved out a space for him to stand between her now open legs and the air around him circulated around her, smothering her in that scent of his that was half-laundry, half-cologne and all heat, but his hands, ah, his hands he kept away from her. He leaned into her to smell her and tease her and torture her- just like he knew she would feel- such was the understanding- and he saw impatience growing in her. She wanted to ask him for more, but she knew that just asking wasn't going to get her anywhere- or rather, _anything_- so she concentrated on breathing deeply, because there was that aching in her center and that heat that would not be appeased until his hands stroked her and that sweet, sweet pain- which was pain nonetheless that could only be soothed by his touch.

Booth saw the change in her demeanor and knew one battle had been won. So he went down on his knees and nestled between her open legs where he could see a patch of wet on her panties and where he could feel her body heat- sweet and tormenting- because to deny her was to deny himself, but still, a plan was a plan and he was nothing if not thorough. He trailed light, light kisses from her knee to her inner thigh, and she moaned her appreciation to each one. When he got to that most intimate of places she was fully expecting the kissing to continue- maybe he would even rip away her panties. But he just held there, where she could feel his warm breath on that delicate skin through the satin of the panties and he wasn't moving- she'd have said he was contemplating, but there was a cruel smile on his face and she knew then that he was prolonging the torture. Instinct took over and her hips thrust forward, trying to meet his talented tongue but he had judged the distance well and she got none of the desired contact.

"Now, now, Bones, that's cheating," and he blew warm air on her, delicately as if he'd been whistling the softest of tunes and her body reacted to him- just like he knew it would. "I can smell you, Bones. You smell so sweet. You're my favorite smell, when you get like this, wet and wanting, just waiting for me inside you. And I will taste you, but I'm not sure you're going to like that." What was he talking about? Of course she was going to like it. She loved it when he went down on her. It was one of the most erotic experiences she'd ever had, the trust between them, the intimacy of it.

"Please, Booth. I always like it. Please." She actually sighed in relief when his mouth first made contact with her. Through the panties, the heat of his tongue was peace, bliss as he kissed her lightly and then nibbled gently and then licked passionately. She squirmed. The panties were in the way. Booth understood her without her begging- because she would have done just so- and pulled them to the side- and his tongue and lips continued its assault. She was all sweetness of nectar and warm and delicious. And for a moment there he nearly forgot what he was doing and where they were- and why he was doing this. Almost reluctantly, he slowed his caresses until he stopped. She looked at him, dazed, confused. She had been so close to the edge that her mouth was still agape and dry and she couldn't muster any form of speech- even to complain of how cold and lonely it felt when his mouth abandoned her.

"No, Bones, not that easy." And he sought her mouth and feasted there, long and greedy, his hands aching to touch her, his plan standing in the way of his pleasure.

Brennan could have drowned in that kiss. Her head spun and spun, faster and faster and the world was reduced to Booth's tongue dancing with hers, doing crazy, crazy things to her mind. It was like being drunk or high or both because her blood hurricaned through her veins and she lost all sense of direction. Her body edged that precipice of pleasure again- his tongue, his scent, his heat was all she needed but again he pulled back, yanked her back from that ledge where she wanted to fall, to plunge. The dizziness was no longer dance, just disorientation and despair to have him back to where he'd stopped.

"Booth." it was no longer a challenge, just a whimper. "Booth." He nearly broke- mostly because she had him wrapped around her little finger, mostly because torturing her was denying himself. But he held. His mouth trailed afresh, down her chin and the column of her neck, her chest. His teeth grazed her nipples gently, teasing her once again to feverish desire, and descended to her navel where he delved into her moorish heat. He brought her close again, so close that her hands were flapping to grab at him- his hair, his face, his shoulders, any part of him she could have anchored herself to. And when he knew that a single more touch would have pushed her over the edge, he stopped. It nearly killed him, because the vision of her orgasming trumped any other sight in the world, but he had a lesson to teach her. And this was but the beginning. Her eyes were liquid when he stared at them, frustration ripe, almost a despair. He leaned to her ear to whisper.

"Say you're sorry, Bones."

"Booth..." She pleaded.

"Say you're sorry."

"For what Booth?" She found her words again, just as her skin, all the places he had touched and kissed started cooling off.

"For being a bad girl." And he kissed the curve of her neck with her shoulder. She shuddered. "For teasing a man when he's trying to work," and his tongue cruised lazily to the dimple at the base of her neck. "For being a tease," and he nibbled at her chin. And there it was again., that criminal tie of his, teasing her breasts and her breathing, making her nearly choke in the need to pull it to her just to bring him closer. But her hands were tied safely at her side and the only thing she could do was thrust herself to be closer to him and his perverse mouth.

Booth's eyes glinted in delight over her predicament. Still, he said nothing. Nothing that would tell her when he would give in to his own so obvious need. There was just that dangerous half smile that caused her skin to shiver in anticipation. His shameless finger traced the embroidered cuff of the stockings and from there to her core was just a trail of fire, the longest eternity of damnation until he decided to appease her fierce, fierce need. She knew what would come next. His finger would delve into her depths and would dance and twist and turn, would caress and sooth and excite, would rise and crash and sink until she no longer knew where she was, until she was all but lost in the pleasure of him on her and her body poured its waves of pleasure into his cupped hand. She was only wrong about the last part.

"No, baby, not yet," and he stopped just when she though she was past the threshold of pleasure. She willed herself to get past it but her body wasn't hers to obey her. It was his to control. She panted and cursed and whimpered and perspired and begged. She was not above begging after all, with her eyes first, with her mouth after.

"Please. Please Booth."

"I should send you home now, Bones. Perhaps have Charlie drive you."

"NO. Please."

"Then promise."

"Anything... just..."  
"No, not like that. Too many loop holes, Bones. Promise that you understand that this is a work environment." And his finger was back to her center, punctuating each word. She'd promise just about anything. She bit her bottom lip and assented as she slithered down the chair to offer more depth to his finger. "That you understand that I have to come to work here every day." She promised. "Promise that you'll never walk into this office again anything else than fully dressed." Brennan just hoped that she could remember all of this later. She would need to find a loop hole. "Promise, Bones," and his finger would have drawn anything out of her, even a guilty confession.

"I promise, Booth." She had just though of a loop hole.

Booth couldn't think of anything else. He'd covered as many bases as his clouded state of mind allowed him. There was just one thing left: he slumped to the floor pulling her to his lap, impaling himself into her. _Oh God_, he could have cried in relief. She would be death of him. He moved Brennan up and down as if she weighed no more than a rag doll. She couldn't have moved even if she wanted. She was cuffed to that throne slash chair of his and had no strength left in her legs. She could only think of the relief of having him finally inside her and she clutched him there a cocoon of warm, wet love around him, spasming as he plunged her with all the strength of his powerful arms. She felt herself building impossibly high and with one final push, she was crashing down over the threshold she'd been teetering over so long and he was pouring inside her. She cried and laughed and her legs moved only enough to squeeze him to say _I love you._

He held her under the desk, burrowing his head in the crook of her neck, trying to ease his panting to the not audible outside his open office. "Remember, Bones, you promised."

"Had my fingers crossed, Booth" And she giggled, that giddy smile of hers that always reduced him to putty in her hands. But he was in no position to bargain. Only to beg. "Bones..."

"Come on, Booth, all work and no play..."  
"Never let it be said that I'm dull."

"Never, Booth."

.

.

.

Outside Booth's office, Charlie was bathed in sweat. Being a guardian angel to those two was taking its toll on his sanity. And yet, he lived for these days when Dr. Brennan came to visit. Usually, she came in after hours and it had taken him a while to clue in, but once he'd heard, in the silence of the office at night, their moans and giggles, he had been more attentive when she walked in close to shift change. It was turning to an addiction, to watch over them. Hell, in all honesty, to_ watch _them. When she'd walked in this afternoon and what with the office door unlocked and all he was sweating twice as much. He'd deflected approaching dangers and twice he'd had to play guard dog, snarling and all. Surely there was some squint beauty for him. It was only fair. He wondered if they were all this hot underneath those lab coats of theirs. And then the door suddenly opened and out came Dr. Brennan and Agent Booth flushed and acting as if they'd just been discussing the weather. He made himself scarce. No use risking his select audience privileges. But he couldn't help but hope for someone to play with like that. Then he too would be walking around with that face of the cat that has licked cream. And he would, if there was a god for the underdog like him, he would.


	13. Sugar In My Bowl

**Author's note: This is one of my all time favorite songs by Nina Simone. There is such sweet sadness about it... It's been a long time since I wanted to do something with it. I hope it doesn't disappoint!  
**

**This one shot comes to you, as usual, with MickeyBoggs help. **

**Hope you like it**

**Jane  
**

I want a little sugar  
in my bowl  
I want a little sweetness  
down in my soul  
I could stand some lovin'  
Oh so bad  
Feel so lonely and I feel so sad

I want a little steam  
on my clothes  
Maybe I could fix things up  
so they'll go  
What's'a matter Daddy  
Come on, save my soul  
Drop a little sugar in my bowl  
I ain't foolin'  
Drop a little sugar in my bowl

Well I want a little sugar  
in my bowl  
Well I want a little sweetness  
down in my soul  
You been acting strangely  
I've been told  
Move me Daddy  
I want some sugar in my bowl  
I want a little steam  
on my clothes  
Maybe I can fix things up so they'll go  
What's'a matter Daddy  
Come on save my soul  
Drop a little sugar in my bowl  
I ain't foolin'  
Drop some sugar- yeah- in my bowl.

***********

She just couldn't say what was wrong with her lately. It was like a sugar low in her blood, a drop in blood pressure. She just couldn't muster the energy to be edgy and cool and _artistic_. It was gone. And she could pinpoint it to that one particular moment in time: Hodgins laughing and saying that he wasn't going to "break her fast". That had cut. And deep too, though at the time she had just concentrated on being the aloof, sporty type who does not take it personally. Like she hadn't been asking. Nearly begging for the companionship they had shared once upon a very long time ago. Like all her hopes of getting back with him hadn't just been crushed. Like it hadn't hurt that the effort she had put into hoping and wondering and, hell, _praying_, that they could patch up had been in vain. As if. Good thing there was that persona of hers, that handy mask to hide behind and nurse her own sentimental wounds. Stupid pig had given her the perfect excuse to cry a few tears. Stupid pig had failed to make Brennan understand how much she needed a girlie cuddle. Stupid pig had failed to give her some consolation for being so lonely she craved a pat in the back, a whisper of affection, a hug. Any hug. Any touch. Just so that she could be sure she was still there, still mattered, was still important. Had not become invisible. Stupid pig that looked so cute that had all her maternal instincts on high alert. Stupid pig that couldn't be saved. Stupid pig as far from hope as she was. If only she could save the pig, then maybe, just maybe someone would come and save her. Stupid pig and stupid Angela: kindred in misery.

She felt like the girl with the matches: all were wet and she was alone and couldn't get warm. She felt sorry for herself. Who else would? Her own private suck fest where no one would buy her matches. No one would save her pig. And she was just so lonely, so cold. Just a hug. Just a word. And not even the supreme honcho of the Illuminati of the psyche had offered her one. Or a hanky to cry on.

So when he walked in through the door, she had just made one last attempt, one last, half-hearted, miserable excuse of an attempt- to save Piggy and herself: she took the photo and showed it to the boy who had needed saving himself.

$45. There had to be a significance in that number, as there had been in the thirty coins, because it was the price or the power to save her. $45 to save a pig- so little, such a small amount towards what she needed. And yet, all it took to save her. As if that boy- a man, really- had taken her last match and lit it and started a small fire, a spark at a time and, in the space of a few words, cajoled it to become a fire, the fire that had extinguished inside her. $45 to save a pig, _her pig_ and her. $45 dollars that he could hardly afford. A fortune of gratitude and hope. Her heart had leaped and shuddered and her face had opened in an unexpected smile and her arms had opened to him as had her heart. Such an unexpected warmth that she could only search his heat and cuddle to him and offer him her cold lips in a kiss that thawed her, slowly, carefully. He had taken her home with him and been suitably embarrassed of his single boy's bedroom, scarce of possessions, clearly full of maternal love, with its hand-knitted quilt and pristine ironed shirts, its smell of a homemade home. She had been taken aback by the care of his touch when he had softly kissed her standing by the bed, making sure she was sure, that there would be no regrets. And suddenly, it was like being back in time, to when she was not that jaded person who feels things only a little, who gives only a little, who cares just a little. When he took her hand in an invitation to share his bed, it was like the world had exploded in to a Technicolor of sensation and feeling and importance. She was there, unbuttoning her shirt, revealing herself to a boy that in so many ways was so much more a man than even her father with his toys had ever been. There she was wondering, as any girl would, if she could do this right for him, and feeling the most wondrous wave of warmth, too intense to do anything else but smile and press herself against that warm body to beg for more and more and more. Suddenly, she was no longer the experienced Angela who always knew how to drive a man crazy and make him beg for more. She was just Angela, enjoying the light feathered touch of a rough, working finger from her collarbone to her navel. She was, for the first time in a long, long while, just the Angela who had, long ago, dreamed of a prince charming. She was just Angela. And Wendell was OK with it.

When he laid atop her and kissed her lips asking for permission to enter her, she knew, with all certainty of her fickle heart, that this might not be love or not the forever type of love. But it would be permanent in the way that true loves- even if one-night-onlys- are: the type that you will always think about, miss, think of fondly. In a way, with every kiss, every stroke, every breathy sigh, Wendell made himself unforgettable because of the tender honesty he gave her. And she whispered and breathed with him, building up, slowly, surely, to the kind of pleasure she wasn't used to because it was so unselfish. When they came together, she had found a new soul, a new self, all in the hands of a boy. He had scared away the sadness, the loneliness.

*************

There was that story her Irish nanny had told her once: a rich man dropped a sack of gold coins in the collection basket at mass. It was a fortune. In the other pew, a poor widow dropped a penny. It was all she had. Who had given the most? Brennan had come around. She had written a check for $1500. Piggy was saved. He would be taken to a shelter and spared death and fed and kept warm and would live a nice long life. Brennan had dropped a sack of gold coins in her collection basket. She still loved Brennan. She still knew that Brennan was a fragile thing who needed understanding and time, love and attention. But Wendell, when he had dropped that single penny, those $45, he had saved her. He had seen her there and held her to him, held her up when she was almost flattened on the floor of indifference. She had forgiven Brennan for not caring, for not sharing and understanding that she needed to save that pig. She would even if that check had not been written, even if it had taken her longer to do it. In a way, that was just token upset. But what would take her longer, maybe not to forgive, but certainly, longer to understand, was that Brennan had not seen through the bravado and the aloofness and the shell of her best friend and seen to her bruised core, the little girl with a hand full of wet matches trying to get warm in the snow. That was one hard to live with disappointment.


	14. Stay with me

**Author's note: Thank you to MickeyBoggs for the proof reading and to Tails who actually jilted me into action. To my friend IG who discusses death with me to the point of bore and does not think (I hope) that I'm a freak.**

**This song is old. 1992 old. But I still love it. This story is inspired by, not only the son, but the original video released in the UK and rest of Europe with it. There is link on my profile if you want to check it out.**

**Jane**

**Stay with me- Shakespeare's sister**

If this world is wearing thin  
And you're thinking of escape  
I'll go anywhere with you  
Just wrap me up in chains  
But if you try to go alone  
Don't think I'll understand

Stay with me  
Stay with me

In the silence of your room  
In the darkness of your dreams  
You must only think of me  
There can be no in between  
When your pride is on the floor  
I'll make you beg for more

Stay with me  
Stay with me

You'd better hope and pray  
That you make it safe  
Back to your own world  
You'd better hope and pray  
That you'll wake one day  
In your own world  
Coz when you sleep at night  
They don't hear your cries  
In your own world  
Only time will tell  
If you can break the spell  
Back in your own world

Stay with me  
Stay with me

* * *

I am what I am. Make no apologies. Still. Been around forever. Literally. It's just a job anyway. Or not. It's me. Do you really care when you come face to face with me, when you take that final stunned gasp of air and realise that you aren't ready?

Irony is a bitch. I bear no liking towards the willing and am compelled to court the unwilling. I am what I am. I am used to the anger, the bargains, the tears and the relief. Nothing is new to me. I am the end of all things. And yet. In the unfathomable length of my existence, I am moved. I collect experiences of others to my make my own bearable.

I held to me a man. And knew him to be of worth. I know nothing of gender. Some think of me as a male. Because my sister is Life, a female force, I, the destruction, must be male. That rule does not apply to me. But even I need to feel. So I held him as a woman would. With fingers that are light I touched him welcome to the End. With soft lips I sang his goodbye song. With a cold heart I envied the woman that sat by his deathbed and held on to his warm hands, her fierce, fierce blue eyes fighting me every step of the way. As if her calling to him, as if by sheer force of her indomitable will she could halt the only thing that is certain in the infinity of all things: Me!

But I have time. So I watched. I watched her drop her exhaustion on the smooth expanse of the sheets by his arm wrapped in bandages and tubes and needles and all manner of devices and fight back the memories of him laying his life for hers in front of one more bullet. I watched as she wrapped her heart in blame and self-deprecation for it. The memories so clear they could have been mine. And because I can, I saw how he lamented only the time he would not have with her. Only the missed opportunities. I saw, clear as any tangible thing, the love. Strong, pulsating, vibrant. Alive, kicking and screaming for redemption. And I hated her.

And even in her sleep she prayed to him, the only object of her faith: _Stay with me, Booth. Stay with me._ And her eyes would well up and shed their tears. If only I had tear ducts and a heart to cry. _Stay. With. Me, s_he would order when vigil would come. And she would catalog organ failure like a litany of inescapable doom. And still there was the light of faith deposed at his feet. Truly, he was her faith, her deepest conviction, her hope. Her one truth. _You are not going anywhere without me_. And she would say it over and over again with the same certainty I am to all things. As if she could more than I. And she knew that I was waiting there- and not for her to quit her little sing song of faith- but just because I am inevitable. Like she could look me in the eye and say _Not now, not this time, not without me_. And I hated her more. Because I had held him as a woman does and I had felt his heat and I knew he was a man of worth and because I am too am tired of being alone. Sometimes, tired of being. So I fought for him. I fought to claim him. _Mine_, I told her. _He is mine_. One by one, his functions ceased. One by one, his organs failed. _Mine,_ I repeated in her ear. One by one, his gasps of breath became shallower and more dispossessed of his body. _Mine,_ I repeated in her heart. One by one, I made his nightmares come back to him. One by one, like pieces of chess, because I wanted him to let go of his world, I played his fears and his nightmares and his shame and his regrets against him. Until he was willing to come. Until he took my hand in his. He was willing to come. Just to make it stop. Not proud of that moment, but sometimes I just want something for me. Just so that eternity is not so unbearable.

He looked at the bed where his mortal body lay waste, his lips blue, his fingers cold, his heart flat. He saw the same I did: her frantic hands gripping him to life and her heart beating twice as fast as if beating for the two of them, her faith in him a solidity in that room. _Stay with me. Stay with me. Booth. I love you. _ And his hand in mine tensed, because he wanted to stay so much, just so that he could hear her say that again. I gripped him tighter. I could say that to him too. I want to say that too. I want to feel that too.

_I love you._ And I closed my eyes and those words could have been for me. _I love you... Bones_.

And as the monitors bleeped and the continuous line in them turned to a flat with no end, much like my existence, she spoke to his now dead body: _You promised_. I expected despair. Accusation. Disappointment. In effect, it was said as a reminder. _You promised_. And her hand ran the length of his short, dark hair, traced his eye brows, his strong cheek bones, his lips. His hand released mine and traced on his incorporeal lips the same lines her finger traced on his dead ones._ You promised_. It was a statement of fact. She took his body into her arms and rocked him against her.

_I did promise her_. And the hand that had held mine reached for the locks of her hair. And I could feel that she had won him from me. A woman, a mere mortal, with faith in a man, a woman who bowed to no god, had won him from me.

Because he saw my shape as a woman, he took my hand and kissed it lightly. _Another time. Please. I did promise her._ And his incorporeal self faded from my grip and his mortal body awoke in hers, the flat line of the green monitor peaking at intervals with her tears as she squeezed him tighter and tighter in her arms, his head in the crook of her neck, his beating heart against hers. _You always keep your promises, Booth._

Because I had held him as a woman would, I wanted to hate her. I wanted to say No. I wanted to drag him with me and make him my paramour. I wanted not to be alone. But there were solid walls around them, their substance love and faith and life. Invisible walls that keep me separate and within myself. With my human form I discovered that the heart I don't have breaks and that the eyes that are not truly mine know how to cry. It's not him that I crave. It's what is between them.

I do not make the rules. But sometimes, I can bend them. I walk out of the room where he lies in her arms and his hand is holding hers. Others wait for me. Others will bargain and argue and curse when they see me. So sue me. It is just a job. Or maybe not. But I am what I am: Death with a broken heart.


	15. Leaving on a jet plane

**Author's note: Thank you to MickeyBoggs for the editing.**

**I know I'm a bit late in joining the finale fiction party. But I do not do rush well. So... I hope you like this one. For all the good it will do us... *****sigh***

**Yours,**

**Jane**

**.**

**.**

**Leaving On A Jet Plane**

All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go  
I'm standin' here outside your door  
I hate to wake you up to say goodbye  
But the dawn is breakin', it's early morn  
The taxi's waitin', he's blowin' his horn  
Already I'm so lonesome I could die

So kiss me and smile for me  
Tell me that you'll wait for me  
Hold me like you'll never let me go  
'Cause I'm leaving on a jet plane  
I don't know when I'll be back again  
Oh, babe, I hate to go

There's so many times I've let you down  
So many times I've played around  
I'll tell you now, they don't mean a thing  
Every place I go, I think of you  
Every song I sing, I sing for you  
When I come back I'll wear your wedding ring

So kiss me and smile for me  
Tell me that you'll wait for me  
Hold me like you'll never let me go  
'Cause I'm leaving on a jet plane  
I don't know when I'll be back again  
Oh, babe, I hate to go

Now the time has come to leave you  
One more time, oh, let me kiss you  
And close your eyes and I'll be on my way  
Dream about the days to come  
When I won't have to leave alone  
About the times that I won't have to say ...

Oh, kiss me and smile for me  
Tell me that you'll wait for me  
Hold me like you'll never let me go  
'Cause I'm leaving on a jet plane  
I don't know when I'll be back again  
Oh, babe, I hate to go

.

._

.

You know, life puts you in places that you never expected... Why else would she be standing here, outside Booth's gray door when all she had wanted in the first place was for a little distance? She raised her hand to knock but she did not complete the movement. They needed the distance. She needed to go, she needed to see if being with him did not cause her to lose herself. They both needed to stand alone. They'd been standing together for so long, their identities had somehow melded together, the contours of one indistinct, seemingly inextricable from the other.

She lowered her hand and considered walking away.

The funny thing is, when you're about to go through a major change, all you want is one last piece of ordinary, of what you're leaving behind to be reassured that everything is going to turn out OK.

She looked at her feet, trying to command them to move and leave.

The gray door opened and Booth stood behind it, barefoot in faded jeans and t-shirt.

"You've been standing out there for some time now. Are you coming in?"

She took his outstretched hand. Funny, but he was never this formal with her.

There were tell tale signs of departure: a single duffel by the door. Notes with meter readings. The kitchen cleaned out of perishables. Everything neat. Not even a sweater out place. That, somehow, brought it more home to her that he was leaving, really leaving, than even that letter from the army. She missed that homeyness of the odd piece of clothing left somewhere in the living room.

"Do you still have a beer somewhere?" She looked around the space, studiously avoiding looking at him straight in the eyes. She wasn't quite sure what she was afraid he'd see if she gave him the time, but she just didn't want to risk. Specially because her eyes were stinging, for some reason.

"Course I do, Bones!" He padded to the fridge and took out two beers, twisted the top off and sat back close, so close, to where she had just sat.

He handed her one and touched the bottle necks in a toast.

They took the first pull of their bottles in silence. What could you say to each other during a beer that you hadn't said in five years of partnership?

"I need you to be safe out there, Bones." Booth was the first to break the silence. His voice resonated in the walls of the apartment. "I need you to look out for bugs and critters and people."

"I can take care of myself, Booth."

"No doubt, Bones. Just... do me a favor, all right?" He put the beer on the coffee table and took off the chain he wore around his neck. "Please take this with you" He held the gleaming gold in his hand, unsure if she would take it.

"Booth, you know I don't believe in objects having intrinsic power... nor in God..."

"I know, Bones. But..." He looked at the oscillating chain in his fingers for inspiration. "Wear it as pretty thing. You like your necklaces... Just pretend it's one of those. Pretend it's pretty and wear it. Please."  
"Booth..."

"It's OK, Bones, I believe enough for the both of us. Just take it, alright?"

For a moment, she was mesmerized by the chain. Then she put her beer down, took her hair and lifted it from her neck, leaning to him.

"I can take care of myself, Booth. Always have."  
"It's a sign of affection, Bones. When someone gives you unsolicited advice, it's a sign of affection. Just take it" He clasped the chain around her neck and slid the medal across the chain. He dropped it slightly above her heart.

When it touched her skin, the gold of the medal, of the chain, was warm. It felt very _there_, brought a weight to her skin, grounding her in that moment, pushing away at the feeling that she had, somehow already left him even though she was still sitting there.

"A great number of cultures acknowledge juju and spells and wishing. I'll take your St. Christopher, Booth. For protection. I'll take it." Her hand rested on the warm gold, her fingers playing with the engraved image.

On an impulse, Brennan kissed his cheek. His skin was of the same temperature as the gold and it felt... nice on her lips. So nice that she had to move half and inch and just kiss his cheek again, just to feel that warmth of his skin on her lips again. It was a slow, slow burn, that need to keep on kissing his cheek and she lost track of what she was doing because she just couldn't stop those kisses percolating out of her into him. And then, there it was, she was at his mouth, having traveled so far from his cheek bone that she just wanted to take repose in his lips, check if they were as soft as the rest of him. The first touch would have been enough. It should have been. She was just emotional and probably pre-menstrual and not in her right mind. It should have been enough. But it wasn't. So she looked him in the eyes (and God, it was going to be strange having to see herself through other than those brown, brown eyes) and, not really asking for permission, she laid her lips over his, slowly, at first, because it had seemed like it was panic what she had seen there, and then, because he did not pull away, more tasting, more researching.

It was a kiss that lacked her trade mark flair and bluntness. It was tentative and tender. Slow and filled with hesitation. It was a brand new kiss.

"I feel like I should give you something. An object to keep you safe. Though I have no such belief. Objects are just objects..." She looked at her hand, where her mother's ring glinted in the soft light of the small table lamp behind her. It was a day for firsts. So she took the ring out.

"Take my ring. I'd prefer you be careful, wear body armor, stay out of a war zone altogether. But you can take my ring."  
"It's your mother's ring." Somehow the ring was in his hand. It was delicate and precious. He wouldn't. Couldn't take it away from her, what little she had of her mother. He took her hand and slid the ring home, slowly, because the gesture wasn't wasted on him and he really enjoyed the feeling and that, that secret thrill of such an intimate gesture, was what he was taking with him. "I can't take it, Bones." He kissed her finger once. "I need her to watch over you." He kissed her finger twice.

And wasn't that Booth in a nutshell: as far as he was concerned, she always came first.

"Booth, I..."  
"It's alright, Bones. I'll settle for a promise." He kissed her finger thrice.

"That a year from tomorrow, in a revolution of the earth around the sun's time, we will meet again. That's what I want you to give me. I want that promise."  
"You're trading your St. Christopher and my mother's ring for a promise?"

"Yep!" She studied him. But his hand was still holding hers and his finger was still toying with her ring and his eyes were so absolutely level on hers she had to believe him. "So you better make it a good one, Bones."

"OK." She cleared her throat because it was closing in on her. "I promise." He lowered his head and placed her palm against his face. It was such a small hand to hold his life in and there just wasn't much he could do about it. And God knew he'd tried. But he had known it all along. He had known it for 6 years now, that his life was in her hands.

Slowly, he pulled her palm to his mouth. If he was going to make it for a year without her by his side, he needed this. He kissed the lines of her palm. If he was going to relinquish control over her safety for 356 days in a row, he needed this. His mouth kissed and kissed the lines in her palm, the crook of each of her fingers. He got distracted. He could do that for a life time without expecting more, because those were the hands he was in. But her small hand slid out of his and held his chin, not unlike he had done to her so many times and cupped his face and the pull of her eyes did the rest. He hoped to God those Hallmark guys knew what they were talking about with all that hooey about letting go of the ones you love. He sure as hell hoped they were right about them coming back. Did they ever say anything about coming back in one perfect piece?

She was staring at him, and her eyes, they were just filled with that light of hers that told him _now, before we have to go_ and her fingers touched her medal and unbuttoned each of the small button of her pale shirt.

"Bones..." _Holy... was that his voice?_ "Bones, are you sure?"

"Yes. Yes, Booth I am. It's not enough to just survive. I need this to make it worth while."

They each reached for the other at the same time. His hands held her neck, her hands held his ribs. They each pulled towards the center. The center would hold, yes.

When their mouths closed the distance between them, there was no discharge of electricity, no roaring thunderclap. There wasn't even a sound. Human puzzles do not click into place. They just do. It's just something that you notice later, how you did not have to explain or comment or say or apologize for. It's just something that was there and you revealed it. It's just something that _is_.

Booth took her in his arms and carried her to the bedroom. So what if it was cliché? Brennan, his Bones, his Brenn, she was hiding her face in his shoulder and her hand was so smooth over his heart and her scent was so pervading in his senses she was all there was.

He laid her down on the bed, all the care, all the time in the world.

For a moment they hesitated. For a moment they contemplated what they were leaving behind and what they were coming up to ahead. Goodbye would be the hardest word.

For a moment. But here is the truth: the eminence of loss is but a parenthesis and life a short paragraph. The center held.

Her hands held out for his. His legs carried him to her. He had been doing that since the day they met. As if she had always been just that one small step ahead.

He crawled to her on the bed, amazement growing, flourishing, expanding in his chest. He would let her go. And she would come back. Stronger. If she came back to him was incidental. All those penny philosophers were right after all. The only decent thing to do was to let go of the ones you loved. And doing that would make him stronger too. As it was, they depended far too much on the other.

Brennan opened her arms, her heart, herself to him. She welcomed the kisses that started at the tips of her fingers, that traced and mapped her arms, her collarbone, her backbone. And she would need that backbone now, more than ever. It would get her through this, through this letting go of him. Did it matter if he returned to her? No. It mattered only that he returned. As far as he was concerned, she was always going to be four years old, with her hands against the shop window, her fingers open wide in need, never touching, never quite reaching. Except now. Now was all there was. He was all there was. Now when he kissed her bra open and her hands and feet tingled and throbbed in glorious anticipation.

No past.

No future.

Just Brennan's hands raking his hair, down his neck, his powerful back.

Just Booth's arms around all of her, just his breath hitching so close to her ear.

Only her heart beating with his need.

Only her breath powering him.

She laid on the bed and he followed.

He kissed her breast and she moaned.

His finger trailed the hills and valleys of her body and she arched.

His adventurous fingers probed her wetness and she came undone.

It surprised him, that fast, sharp reaction to his touch. He smiled. She laughed. He laughed too. He loved that sound of hers.

He fell in love with her all over again.

She had always loved him.

He kissed her ribs, on by one, the concave of her hip, the convex of her waist, the delicate lines of her belly.

He dove into her sex and lapped and tasted. He sampled and he devoured fully. He was thankful for the banquet in that green pasture that she was.

She was morning dew, milk and honey. Salt of the earth. Holly communion.

She was a long, long wait coming to bear fruit.

His, his so very his Bones.

.

.

Is was such a wealth of sensation, his scent, clean and fresh and good. His harsh beard and his soft hair, his hard belly and his tender hands. The coolness of the sheets and the warmth of his breath. Her breath caught and her heart beat like it was going to explode, her vision clouded and her brain ceased all movement. Stars. There were so many stars popping and exploding all at once.

She became his touch.

His tongue, slick, soft, cheeky, entered her. She wanted to sing and cry and curse in one word. Her brain was powerless. So she moaned her agreement as that magic tongue touched her in places only she knew about. And drew responses out of her she couldn't have anticipated. He subdued her with a touch.

She cried his name. In her head first, out in the air, after.

She turned the tables and surprised him.

She flattened him onto the mattress and he loved her for it.

She bit his chin and he cupped her bottom.

She immobilized him and he let her.

She trailed kisses down his chest and is breath caught in his throat.

She scraped his skin with her teeth and his cock twitched.

She welcomed him into her mouth and he grabbed the sheets in quiet desperation.

She caressed and rubbed, bobbed and rocked, sucked and squeezed. And he begged for mercy.

Though he really did not want any.

She smiled and he smiled with her. Now they were even. Almost.

.

.

Brennan knelt. One knee on either side of him. Naked, she was his goddess. His hands found life again, numb as they were from clutching at the bunched sheets, they had strength anew to hold her. His muscles, tense from her touch as they were, were powerful enough to raise him from the mattress.

When he entered her, they were face to face, on equal terms. Sure she was sitting on him. But those were details. They were on an even keel. When he entered her, they were both staring into the other, eyes wide open to the moment, wide shut to the past and the future. When he entered her, when she welcomed him into her, there were only two people that were finding a way to be together.

She exhaled. She didn't need the air, she needed him.

He inhaled. He needed to fill himself with her.

For a moment it was just too much: the sum of their years together, the undisclosed desires of the past, the promises of the future. For a moment, their cup overflowed. They both held on to the other for dear life.

Then, as it must, it all changed. They were back to the moment.

The need had them moving. Their bodies acted of their own accord. Her inner muscles teased him, his shaft responded. The rest of them caught up. Brennan started a slow rocking motion. Booth's hands caressed and teased and pinched her sensitive nipples. She leaned back. Sometimes distance was just a way to get closer. She offered him fuller access. He took that unspoken invitation of hers. His fingers searched and found a little bundle of nerves. And when they did, Booth smiled at her gasp. Gently, delicately, he cajoled the little nub. Slowly and surely, her body tingled and her concentrated technique went up in a wild fire of sensations that seemed to permeate her from outside and percolate from the inside until her skin was nothing more than a fragile film holding her together.

Her fingers held on to his shoulders. Her nails carved 10 half moons onto his perfect skin. He welcomed it. He would need them to believe it in the morning.

He would need them etched permanently onto his skin in the year to come.

His fingers dug onto her buttocks. It was selfish, he knew, but he wanted to do some marking of his own. He wanted to be on her and in her and he wanted to be indelible. His arms circled around her small waist and pulled her flush to him. He was done with the looking. He was done with the distance. Now he needed the skin contact, he needed the friction of her nipples on his chest, the feathering of her hair on his shoulders, the heat of her breath on his face, he quiet desperation of her gasps in his ears.

Because the pressure in his balls was building, because they were tight and heavy and so close to explode. Because he needed the comfort of knowing she was tight there with him. In a surge of love, he pulled her so tight to him they could not have moved.

In a surge of love, she sank into him and tightened her arms around him. Maybe if she squeezed enough she could keep him inside her for a year.

In an surge of heart, her muscles contracted wildly and his shaft shuddered and they both came together holding perfectly still.

It overwhelmed them.

.

.

For some time still, there was only syncopated breathing of two bodies, the pounding of two hearts, the mad rush of blood inside two bodies. They were one as much as they had ever been in all that they did.

And they didn't flinch.

Booth laid down on the bed and dragged Brennan with him onto his chest. His arms were still around her waist, hers still around his neck.

And they didn't flinch.

"I'll be waiting for you, Booth."

"I'll wait for you, Bones."

They did not flinch. It was the truth.

.

.

Dawn was breaking in the horizon, the dark sky grading it's near black into shades of blue. She had a flight to catch, he had an army truck coming by to pick him up. Still, they held on, skin against skin. They should have slept together. They should have spent the night like that, holding on to the other.

But sometimes, distance is just a way to get closer.

So she called a cab and got dressed.

So he made coffee and got into his army fatigues.

They held each other- didn't they always?- in the shy light of breaking dawn and drank their last cup of coffee together. They didn't say much. What else was there to say?

.

.

Dawn became the cold light of early morning. The cab blew its horn in the still deserted street.

They both hated and welcomed the moment of the goodbye.

Every change needs a catalyst.

"I'll miss you, Bones."

"I'll miss you too, Booth."

They said _I'll miss you._ Really, they both heard _I love you_.

.

.

Brennan did not walk down the stairs. She ran. Like ripping off a band aid. Better done fast.

Booth did not go to the window. He was out of heart.

There is nothing sadder than watching the distance between two bodies that love each other grow.

Not even the need for one final kiss. Not even the need for one less look.

.

.

.

.

Sometimes, distance was the only way to be closer.

Brennan embraced Daisy's incessant chatter and natter. It was soothing, like white noise, like a washing machine or a hair dryer or the engines of the plane carrying her away. Between the moment they held their hands until they touched again, a whole year would have to pass. A whole lot of _on your own two feet_; a great deal of seeing who she was alone. So that she could find out how to be with him.

They were- they had to be- so much more that the sum of their years together.

"Don't be a hero. Don't be... you." Which was silly. How could he be less than what he was everyday? The begging went unheard: _be careful. Remember, you belong to me_.

Until then, she would hold on to the promise: a coffee cart by a water mirror. His hand holding on to hers, promising to never let go.

Even through the distance.

.

.

Booth held her hand in his, tight, so tight, like he was not letting go. Ever.

He had a track record for doing his own thing in the army. Sneaking out to see her off? That was the minor leagues. He would do a whole lot more if she needed him wherever she was. Half a world away was nothing.

He reminded her of her promise to stay safe: _Coffee cart, reflecting pool, a year from today._

She promised:_ I know. _

.

.

Their hands closed around each other. They both gave and took strength from it. It reminded them both that they had the backbone to get through the year ahead, to come back stronger.

Mostly, though they were standing in front of the peanut gallery, they made love one last time. Privately.


	16. Calling all angels

**Author's note: As ever, I am in MickeyBoggs' debt for her help with this chapter. Thank you!**

**Note 2: When I was writing this piece, I had the song it refers to on a loop. This is only relevant because it gave me a sense of quiet- not calm, mind you - but quiet. Which, I hope, will be the same sense you get out of it, even though the first scene is... well, you'll see. **

**Note 3: There are many versions of this song, which is no wonder, but my favorite, is that of Jane Siberry with K D Lang.**

**.**

**.  
**

Santa Maria, Santa Teresa, Santa Anna, Santa Susannah  
Santa Cecilia, Santa Copelia, Santa Domenica, Mary Angelica  
Frater Achad, Frater Pietro, Julianus, Petronilla  
Santa, Santos, Miroslaw, Vladimir  
and all the rest

a man is placed upon the steps, a baby cries  
and high above the church bells start to ring  
and as the heaviness the body oh the heaviness settles in  
somewhere you can hear a mother sing

then it's one foot then the other as you step out onto the road  
how much weight? how much weight?  
then it's how long? and how far?  
and how many times before it's too late?

calling all angels  
calling all angels  
walk me through this one  
don't leave me alone  
calling all angels  
calling all angels  
we're cryin' and we're hurtin'  
and we're not sure why...

and every day you gaze upon the sunset  
with such love and intensity  
it's almost...it's almost as if  
if you could only crack the code  
then you'd finally understand what this all means

but if you could...do you think you would  
trade in all the pain and suffering?  
ah, but then you'd miss  
the beauty of the light upon this earth  
and the sweetness of the leaving

calling all angels  
calling all angels  
walk me through this one  
don't leave me alone  
callin' all angels  
callin' all angels  
we're tryin'  
we're hopin'  
we're hurtin'  
we're lovin'  
we're cryin'  
we're callin'  
'cause we're not sure how this goes

Afghanistan, somewhere in the hills.

.

.

.

His heavy combat boots pounded the sand and lifted small dust clouds. The weapon clutched in his hand was tired, so tired. His army fatigues were fading. He took shelter behind the scorching wreck of an out building.

Sometime, long ago, this had been a farm. Sometime, long ago, lives had been lived in this land. Today, the ground stood ready, parched to drink someone's blood. He was not ready to die. But he wasn't ready to kill either.

He called all angels and saints he could remember for a miracle.

Somewhere in the silence, a child cried. Somewhere, hidden in that same silence, a mother hushed the child.

The sun burned him as he held his weapon, as he waited and waited. All you could do in a stand off was to wait for the enemy to fire. And then hope to respond as fast as you could.

Hidden under the smoked out wreck of a car, a dog cowered in the shadows. It reminded him of Ripley.

The door opened exposing the dark gut of a house.

Booth held his weapon as an extension of his own arm.

The child cried again.

.

.

_The combat boots dragged the sand, lifted clouds of destitute dust. The weapon dragged through the floor, useless, dangerous. Defeated. The pale fatigues moved through the waves of heat, ephemeral, untouchable. In the distance, in the invisible distance of the desert, a child cried. _

_She wanted to cry and laugh. He was back. He was back. He was back. _

_She opened her arms to him. He walked to her._

_Out of that invisible distance, a gun cocked and the shot reverberated through the wavy sand. _

_He held still for second and then walked again._

_He was OK. He was walking and she had prayed. She had prayed to all the angels and saints. Surely, the angels could appreciate the irony of her praying. Certainly they had a sense of humor. He was OK._

"_I'm sorry, Bones."_

_He was OK. She had prayed._

_There was no blood. He was OK. She. Had. Prayed._

_But when he reached her open arms, when she opened his army fatigues, there was a slow, steady, sticky river of blood coming from his heart. _

_His hands were covered in blood._

"_I'm so sorry, Bones."_

_._

_._

The door opened and for a fraction of a second, nothing happened.

Then the child cried and the mother walked forward. Funny thing, how fear and grief are such universal expressions. So the same wherever on the planet you are.

Moving slowly, he gestured his team "hold your fire". As the woman waked into the sandy earth, the child in her arms, the barrel of a gun became visible, then an arm, then a whole body. The gun kicked the woman forward, her eyes wildly looking for salvation. She too was calling to all her angels. Different language, same fear. Her arms clutched around her little one.

A gun cocked.

The whole world went silent.

The child whimpered and the mother gently, sobbing, hushed her. One more kick of the weapon, one more step forward.

The man behind the weapon became visible.

A shot went off. The shock waves of it seemed to go on and on and on.

The man fell to the dusty ground.

The baby wailed.

All hell broke loose.

Booth cocked his own gun.

The men inside the house yelled a war cry.

Booth's man stood, his gun still in the firing position.

His brethren stood with him, offering more targets, cocking their guns, still stunned by the perfect shot.

The mother clutched her arms around the infant and offered her back towards the house.

Mothers do that. Their children first. Doesn't matter what they wear or what language they speak or the god they believe in. Mothers do that.

Booth sprung from his cover and ran to her.

The men inside the house spilled out and aimed at her, at his men, at him. Either way, there would be even more blood on that starving ground. He ran, possibly flew, to the mother and her child, shielding them with his body.

.

.

_She took the falling man into her arms, collapsing under the weight. _

"_I'm so sorry, Bones."_

"_Come on, Booth!" She placed her trembling hand over his heart as if she could plug the fissure the blood was coming out of. "Come on!"_

_._

_._

Under the smoked out wreck of the car, the Ripley-look-alike stared at him miserably.

Under him, the mother. Her skin was hard and tanned, old, though she was little more than a teenager. But her eyes, oh, holy mother, her eyes were blue as the sky above him. And though they were open, there was no spark of life there. Between them, the warm wetness of their combined blood. Inside him, his humanity died from the bullet that hit his chest.

Under his protective arm, the infant squirmed.

Around them, hell raged, sound and fury.

To Booth, there was only the wailing of the child, the blue of the mother's eyes and that dog under the wreck of the car.

Voices in ugly war cries. Footsteps pounding the earth. And the child squirmed under his hand. Calling out all his angels, _please not the child,_ he took his side arm.

One. Two. Three shots.

One. Two. Three bodies feeding the soil their young warrior blood.

His eyes closed. Heaviness settled on his body.

_But his soul goes marching on._

_._

_._

Brennan woke up, the beads of sweat on her forehead turning into an icy sheen in the cold of the so very civilized air conditioned room of the very urban hotel built to accommodate foreign scientists in a micro village in the jungle. There were no reptiles or dangers here.

Booth had worried for nothing.

She studied her hands. There was no blood. It was only a dream. Only a dream.

..

...

...

...

Washington DC.

.

.

His feet marched on, but his soul had perished.

He no longer called out to angels. There was nothing left to ask for. There was nothing left of him.

_What's year? A year is nothing._

A year had been a lifetime.

_A revolution of the earth around the sun._

He sat by the coffee cart. For all the differences, it could have been the day after they had said goodbye at that airport. The Mall was still the same. The reflecting pool still mirrored the same uncaring sky, the same inclement sun. People still milled around and for all their numbers, no would notice one more, one less.

He scratched the head of the dog that sat by his feet. He was tempted to leave, so disappear. Who would notice one less carcass in the middle of so many people?

.

.

Brennan stood at a distance. Without looking, she had found him. When she looked, she did not recognize him. He was old, thin, fragile. If she hadn't counted each of those 365 days, she would have thought that 10 years had gone by.

There was a momentary panic. She was no good at this. She did not know how to heal whatever wounds he had brought back.

.

.

It could have been a rustle of the wind. Maybe one of his ghosts walking by. But he opened his eyes and without looking, he found her.

She looked smaller- maybe thinner. But she looked stronger than he remembered her. And he had though about her for every single one of the 365 days he had been to hell. She looked like she did not need him anymore.

.

.

Brennan walked to the bench Booth was sitting on.

365 days without so much as talking to him.

He was older, gaunter, sadder. But that shell was still her Booth. She opened her arms to him and held them that way for a second.

.

.

Booth looked at his hands, still so full of blood. How could he pollute her like this?

.

.

Everything happens eventually.

Her heart bumped and thumped in her chest.

Her arms remained open, expectant.

She called out to all angels. They would appreciate the irony of her praying. She had no pride left.

.

.

He couldn't help himself. He leaned into those open arms.

.

.

Brennan welcomed Booth into her arms. He had never left her heart. She closed herself around him, rocked him softly. Somewhere in the distance she heard the faded sound of church bells. She could protect him from the world.

.

.

The sun was setting softly over the horizon, the air was a burnt orange color. The coffee cart man closed up and walked home with his hands in his pockets, whistling a broken tune.

The dog at his feet moved on its hind legs but did not leave its place.

When he got a hold of himself, Booth held Brennan tightly. She was thinner. She used to fill his arms a little more. He pulled back. He wanted to look at her properly, make sure that she had come back whole.

Her hair was different too. Her skin. But her scent was still the same. It was the scent of all that is good and whole.

If only he could forget the metallic smell of the blood on the sand.

As if on cue, the dog at his feet whimpered a little.

Booth scratched his head.

"This is Ripley Booth" The dog put its chin on Booth's knees and studied Brennan. Happy with its study, he kissed Brennan's hand. "He came with me from… over there."

"It's a good name" Her hand caressed the dog's scarred face, the ugly ears. The eyes were brown and warm.

Brennan took the St. Christopher's medal she had worn around her neck for the last 365 days.

"I kept my promise." The gold of the chain glinted in the last of the sunlight.

Booth stared at the medal. He looked away. What was the point of it now?

No one had heard him when he had needed it.

When he didn't make a move to claim his medal, Brennan put it back around her neck. She had a feeling she would need it in the time to come.

Her hands cupped Booth's older face. His eyes were colder. Empty. Sad. As if he was there but not really. And she didn't know how to find him. He was standing right in front of her, but she didn't know how to find him.

She called out to all angels.

"You were right all along, Bones. There is nothing out there, no God, no angels, no saints and if there are, they just don't care." His hands had separated from hers. Absently, he scratched Ripley's head, his eyes reflecting nothing more that the twilight.

"Why do you say that?" She wanted her Booth back. The Booth with faith in God, in himself. She didn't quite know how to do that.

"They didn't hear me." There was a world of loss in those words. Her hand looked for his and opened to his touch. He hid his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket.

"What did you ask for?" What hadn't he? He closed his eyes and he was back on the sandy earth of those hills with a dead mother under him, an orphan infant lying on the dust, the smell of burned flesh and three more dead in his conscience.

"I prayed for a way to get through... this... hell."

Brennan pulled his hand from his pocket, held it hers with deliberate care. She chose her next words carefully. They were not words she would proffer lightly. They were not words she would have proffered 365 days ago.

"Who says they didn't hear you? I'm here. I'll see you through this."

"You don't know what I did."

"No, I don't. Booth, look at me." He didn't. There was such underlying shame in him, he couldn't. "Look at me, Booth. Nothing, absolutely nothing, can change what I feel for you."

In the distance, Booth could hear church bells.

"Temperance, fortitude, justice and prudence."

"The four cardinal virtues..."

"Yes..."

"We will start again Booth. We will even out you cosmic balance sheet. Trust me."

He looked at his hand in hers. He couldn't see the blood now she was holding it in hers.

He did trust her. He really did.

.

.

A broken man, a strong woman and an ugly dog stood from their cold bench by the reflecting pool. She put her arm through the man's, the dog walked patiently beside them.

In the distance, church bells chimed. There was a whole world of noise.

Between then, there was the silence of a promise.

They would start over.

They would start everything over. Though at that point they didn't really know what they were in for.

They didn't really know that everything happens for a reason.


	17. Happiness

**Author's note: I've been missing Brennan *sigh*. **

**I love this song. I really do. My favourite version is by Alison Krauss and the Union Station. As always, on my profile, the link to my homepage will take to you to where you can here it.**

**Note 2- Thank you to MickeyBoggs, for betaing and for the first feedback.**

**With love**

**Jane**

**.**

Hapiness

With your love I was complete  
Like a haven safe from harm  
Till the bitter stole the sweet  
I was perfect in your arms  
A precious while I had your smile  
Till it all fell apart with one change of heart

The pain and regret will fade but a fact of love will still remain  
You can't always trust happiness  
Love like a sweet parade till the saddest part when the music fades  
You can't always trust happiness

If a single star I see  
Ever made a wish come true  
It would bring you back to me  
But the best my heart can do  
Is to love again, I don't know when  
Still it's worth all I fear, the heartaches and the tears

Love like a lesson learned when we pass the point of no return  
You can't always trust happiness  
There in love's steady glow hides the power to hurt us so  
You can't always trust happiness

Brennan held herself because she missed Booth's arms around her, as if she'd never ever be warm again. She would forever, it seemed, be missing him from now on. Because he had moved on. And her? She had a change of heart. The time away, instead of dissolving all that was between them, had distilled it, given it strength. Purified it. Given it clarity. She had wanted what he had offered for every day of the last seven months.

In the dark of her lonely apartment, she missed what had made it a home- his voice, his footsteps, his laughter, his take away boxes abandoned on the coffee table while they talked and laughed and bickered.

Who would have though that the crushing of hope could hurt more than having all the bones in your body broken at the same time?

_Brennan's arms had wrapped around Booth, pressing him against her with such strength that should never have been held in such a delicate body. _

_She had taken her time holding him as if she were on a recognition mission. His warmth, his strength, the steady beat of his heart. _

_It was amazing to her, the pure, undiluted pleasure she was taking in such a simple, mundane thing as holding him. Such a blinding spark of happiness she couldn't ever, ever remember feeling anything even approximated it._

_And then it was over._

_He hadn't been hugging back._

_It was odd. He'd smelled different. He'd looked the same, but he hugged different and he smelled different._

_She hadn't exactly made plans for the reunion. She hadn't thought much beyond the anticipation of the pure pleasure of standing in front of him._

_She hadn't planned on anything. But stupidly, she had banked on permanence. And entropy was all she got._

_He pulled her slightly away, not at arm's length. No, he would never be that callous. But there was a a distance, nonetheless._

_And that distance was the woman that loomed over his shoulder and interrupted the moment that should have been theirs and theirs alone._

_Perfectly lovely. The woman was perfectly lovely. Booth would never choose any less than that. It was hard to resent her. She was nice and kind and intelligent and beautiful. And so up Booth's alley with all that beautiful blond hair. And she made him happy. He had looked at peace. Truly happy._

_Brennan had lowered her arms, releasing Booth, every muscle aching at the separation._

_It had hurt physically to extricate herself from him. It had hurt so damned much she could barely stand, let alone smile._

"_I'm so happy to see you."_

_And wasn't that the absolute truth. _

_But you can't trust happiness. _

_All she was left with was the hurt. _

She didn't believe in anything that wasn't tangible. Yet she had prayed. She had held that St. Christopher medal in her fervent hands and prayed. Prayed for his safety, for his happiness, for all good things to come to him.

_She left the diner and walked home, alone. Before, he would never have let her walk alone. Not so much as around the corner. Now, he didn't so much as realise that she had left the happy reunion of their little messed up family of sorts._

It was the irony that bruised her. She had prayed for all sorts of good things for him. It just went to show that you had to be so, so careful with what you prayed for. You never knew when someone might be in a mood to grant it to you.

She had prayed for him to come back. He had. And she was humbly grateful for having him back without news of wound or injury. But he had come back in someone else's arms.

She had prayed for him to find happiness. He had. With someone else.

But the kicker, the true sucker punch to the gut, what really proved that he was right and that god or whoever answered prayers had a sense of humour, was that, the only thing she had never been able to pray for was that he could move on. And he had.

Love was a lesson learned: She had allowed herself to name it, that light in her days, the glow of her skin, that sense of safety just because he had squatted a space in her life, the absolute need to put his happiness first. She had needed that time away. She had needed the absolute certainty that he made her be a better person.

_She had stopped at a safe distance across the street. In the diner, Booth kept his arm around Hannah's shoulders (Hannah, such a pretty, feminine name) and smiled. All her people smiled. She couldn't hear them any more than they could see her. But they all looked happy. It was a good thing. She had prayed for all of them during her time away. She had worried about each and every one as a mother hen worries about her chicks. _

_They were all OK, all fine._

_And that was a good thing._

_She had resumed walking. People say that you should not look back. But somehow, she had lost her sense of direction. And when you don't know where you're going, what else is there but to look back?_

She looked at the still unpacked bags. She should do something about them. Just not now. Someone was breathing too hard, too ragged. With a start, she realised it was her. There was only her.

She allowed herself a minute. Or it could have been hours. Then she did what she did best. She collected herself and stood. Booth was happy and that was all that mattered. Her own heart was a secondary issue. She'd go on standing. She'd be standing in the fringes of his life, but, given the alternative, that was not such a bad place to be.

She'd learn to be happy with what she had.

She always did.


	18. White Flag

**Author's note (rather pertinent, so please do read): Please, please, please, do not construe this piece as a demonstration of my feelings towards Hannah. There are far too many opinions on that, I'm sure you don't need mine.**

**That said, I can't help but feeling the sting of jealousy on Brennan's behalf every time they show Booth in bed with her. They seem to be going out of their way to fit in those scenes. Is it me or they were not so insistent when Brennan was with somebody else?**

**Alas, people, it is just a TV show. Not worth the hate campaigns I have seen flying around in all sorts of directions. Can we just take a step back and get some perspective?**

**Author's note 2: Thank you to MickeyBoggs, _betissima_!**

**Further Author's note, totally irrelevant, but indulge me, please: This song is just amazing. Lyrics are by Dido Armstrong. And I have loved ir for so many years. But the other day I was on you tube watching it it there is, Mr DB in the flesh. Man, how am I always the last to know these things? So there it was, this song had to be a B&B. It just had to. Coincidence? No. It just is so them.**

**Much Love**

**Jane**

White Flag

I know you think that I shouldn't still love you,  
Or tell you that.  
But if I didn't say it, well I'd still have felt it  
where's the sense in that?

I promise I'm not trying to make your life harder  
Or return to where we were

I will go down with this ship  
And I won't put my hands up and surrender  
There will be no white flag above my door  
I'm in love and always will be

I know I left too much mess and  
destruction to come back again  
And I caused nothing but trouble  
I understand if you can't talk to me again  
And if you live by the rules of "it's over"  
then I'm sure that that makes sense

I will go down with this ship  
And I won't put my hands up and surrender  
There will be no white flag above my door  
I'm in love and always will be

And when we meet  
Which I'm sure we will  
All that was there  
Will be there still  
I'll let it pass  
And hold my tongue  
And you will think  
That I've moved on...

I will go down with this ship  
And I won't put my hands up and surrender  
There will be no white flag above my door  
I'm in love and always will be

How long was too long to be platonically in love with someone? One year? Three? Six?

How long more after that could a platonic love endure?

Mostly, though _forever_ was an impossible quantifier, forever was just about right.

.

.

Brennan braced herself for impact as Hannah walked in. Now, Booth would get up and he would gather her in his arms and kiss her with all the love inside him, pull a chair for her and look at her like she was the single most important thing in the world, as if that gesture alone would make everything that was wrong with the world right itself.

And that was forever the most painful thing to see. Because no matter what could be said about epiphanies and her name in the same sentence, it was all, as Booth would put it, _bull_. She had fallen in love about six years ago, struggled everyday with that feeling and, as fact, it remained. No matter how many men she had tried to date, no matter how many women she had seen him go out with.

It seemed like that was just about the only thing that resisted entropy. She had felt safe in the knowledge that, even though they could not, because of her fundamental failures as a human being, they would always… have each other.

And wasn't that a kick in the teeth that, the moment she had made a mess things, he had turned around, released from her, and found someone to love.

And now she sat through her punishment, she sat through their kisses and their _moments_ and their life and defended that tooth and nail and was grateful for it because it was what made him happy.

No, she wouldn't tell Booth. Not out loud. That would add insult to injury. But she was in love and always would be. There was no giving up, no giving in. This was just another way to love: to keep her secret and be happy for every one of Booth's little happinesses.

When he was too engrossed in Hannah, she fixated her smile, took her bag, said good night that no one heard and walked out into the cold of the winter.

Life had turned out like she expected.

.

.

He knew he had made a mess of things. He had rushed, though he knew he shouldn't. He had spoken out of turn and frightened Brennan and hurt them both.

And he had run when given the first half-chance. And had chosen someone new, someone diametrically opposed to Bones because it was so much easier to devote himself to someone else than to ponder on his failures.

He was in love.

Sure. Hannah. He loved Hannah. Hannah was good for him, good with his people. A good girl. Perfect.

Almost perfect.

Except for the fact that she wasn't… No matter. No matter what she wasn't. Or who. It mattered what she was. With a movement of his head, he shook all other thoughts and concentrated on Hannah again.

Except.

He wouldn't say it again. He wouldn't beg for them to go back before that session with Sweets. He wouldn't. Clearly, he was no good for Bones. Though he loved her. Still.

Some things were like that and you had to trust God- that if it didn't work you had to trust the signs, cut your losses and try and walk away.

Except.

How could he give up?

How could he surrender?

How, when he was as in love with her now as he was before Afghanistan and Hannah and her fig tree- there, said it, copped up to it.

He smiled at Hannah, took his glass and walked out. He needed air.

Life had turned out like he expected.

.

.

It surprised both when Booth sat next to Brennan under the shelter of that bus stop. He hadn't seen her sitting, she hadn't seen him approaching.

But he sat close to her and she scooted to him and there was something so precious about the cold of night that suddenly seemed to recede.

They had grown so used to the ache of the distance that proximity was a lot like a banked fire that thawed you out and breathed new life into old bones.

For a moment, there was just that simple silence between them, like an old shoe, so comfortable in its fit.

She was just a girl in love.

He was just a guy in love.

His hand searched hers and held it tight.

Her hand opened to his and absorbed the strength of his hold.

A bus came and a bus left. People got out and people got into that bus.

Sitting under that shelter, Booth and Brennan drew into each other. It wasn't a choice. It was almost like inevitability.

That guy's lips touched that girl's. There was nothing amazing about it.

Except, probably, six years of not surrendering.

And, who knew, perhaps a forever waiting for them.


	19. Easy Silence

**Author's note: Oh, this song! It's by Dixie Chicks and there is just something so beautiful, so peaceful about it...**

**Go ahead, go listen to it. **

**Second note: Thank you to MickeyBoggs. You know her, beta extraordinaire!**

**Much love**

**Jane**

**.**

**.**

When the calls and conversations  
Accidents and accusations  
Messages and misperceptions  
Paralyze my mind  
Buses, cars, and airplanes leaving  
Burnin' fuel and gasoline and  
And everyone is running and I  
Come to find a refuge in the

Easy silence that you make for me  
It's okay when there's nothing more to say to me  
And the peaceful quiet you create for me  
And the way you keep the world at bay for me  
The way you keep the world at bay

Monkeys on the barricades  
Are warning us to back away  
They form commissions trying to find  
The next one they can crucify  
And anger plays on every station  
Answers only make more questions  
I need something to believe in  
Breathe in sanctuary in the

Easy silence that you make for me  
It's okay when there's nothing more to say to me  
And the peaceful quiet you create for me  
And the way you keep the world at bay for me  
The way you keep the world at bay

Children lose their youth too soon  
Watching war made us immune  
And I've got all the world to lose  
But I just want to hold on to the

Easy silence that you make for me  
It's okay when there's nothing more to say to me  
And the peaceful quiet you create for me  
And the way you keep the world at bay for me

The easy silence that you make for me  
It's okay when there's nothing more to say to me  
And the peaceful quiet you create for me  
And the way you keep the world at bay for me  
The way you keep the world at bay for me  
The way you keep the world at bay for me

_In the quiet of the building, the key slid into the lock with an easy metal griding that whispered _home._ He took a deep breath, trying to clear his mind from the day, though he knew that until he made it inside there would be no peace. He just needed this moment because he still felt amazed at the transition between the world outside and the other side of the door._

_It still smelled new. New hardwood floors, new curtains, new spaces, but this was home. Softly, he closed the door behind him and leaned against the door as if the day would try to push through the door and he had to physically guard everything from it._

_He stepped out of his shoes and dropped the jacket next to him on the sofa. Softly, his head fell into his cupped hands, because there are moments when it feels your head will break wide open under the pressure of heartache._

The noise had been deafening, an octave away from paralyzing. The calls, the shouts, the people, the media, the whole thing. The name. Hannah. He had rushed through the passes, because, in a way, she was his still. He always saved a little of his heart for the people that had inhabited it. You don't really evict from your heart the people that have been in it. But this? It had been a her fault. She was never careful. Always blasé about her safety, always too worried about the story. And someone else always had to pick up the pieces.

It took too many calls, all of them still ringing in his ears. Took too many people, too many questions, too many suspects. But he worked the case.

He worked the case with the Jeffersonian. With Bones. He worked the case with Bones. And with her, he found where Hannah had been taken to. With Bones and her people - their people - he found her, and he put an operation together.

_._

_._

_He poured a shot of whiskey and let it slide through his throat, because this burning was better than the one in his heart. This burn almost smoothed the pain away. He carried it to the shower, padding silently through the welcoming wooden floors._

_He removed his torn and bloodied shirt and sighed looking through it. Sometimes you study an object closely when no answers can come from it just because you cannot stand to look back at what tarnished them_

_The blood on the shirt was his._

_The blood on his hands wasn't._

_He ran the shower and stepped in._

_._

_._

He got his people, all his resources behind it. But he found Hannah.

He left Bones at the lab, packed up his Kevlar, his gun and the might of the FBI with him. And he drove to the high end house in the suburbs where Hannah was held.

Did not take much. Just a shot too soon. A shot out of time, a rookie and the whole operation went down in a hail of bullets, like a bad action film. A very bad film with very bad special effects and very poor performances.

.

.

_He took the lavender soap and took his time scrubbing away at the day on his skin, the soap suds swirling and twirling around his feet, not quite ready to let him off the hook. It was all his fault. The blood on his hands was as much there as it ever was. As if telling him there was no forgiveness for him. The world screamed at him. He had tried to be a hero. _

_But world screamed back _Scum.

.

.

People got shot, property was destroyed, the suspect shot in his last ditch attempt at saving her.

In the end? Hannah had jumped into his arms as if the last few months had not happened, as if she had not left him angry, crushed, overwhelmed by anguish.

As if she had not chosen freedom over him.

Freedom to be reckless and detached.

His arms had reacted before he could. He pushed her way, blood still seeping quietly from his shoulder, staining the white shirt.

.

.

_He studied the future scar on his shoulder. No biggie. Little more than a scratch, attended to at the site of the carnage._

_Just a scratch, would fade away faster than anything he'd ever had done to him._

_But his badged and his gun taken from him?_

_That left a void, like some one had taken a pound of flesh from him. Without those talismans? _

_Was he even Seeley Booth?_

_What was he without his job?_

_How was he supposed to make up for all he had done in life?_

_._

_._

The media had been on it from the very beginning, chasing, hunting, demanding, shouting, confronting. Hannah was one of them, a member of the clan, but, mostly, she was a paragon. Journalism as a weapon. They all thought of themselves as heroes. The media with their microphones and their cameras and their hunger for a new scoop. And he'd been the fodder. Wasn't he Hannah's old flame? What did he have to say? Did the massacre in that quiet neighborhood have anything to do with his passionate relationship with the hostage? What could he have done to avoid the bloodbath? Bloodbath? Where did they come up with this? Did they have any plans for the future? Was he happy to see her alive? Was he proud of her?

Sometime during the feeding frenzy, everybody had forgotten that rotten cops, traitors, really, had kidnapped Hannah, that the first shot had been theirs.

The face of the villain on the news had been his. Him with his gun still in his hand, looking dazed at how things had gone to hell in a hand basket so fast.

.

.

_Could he? Could he have stopped the bloodbath? Could he have done anything different? Should he have stayed away when he heard Hannah's name? He pushed through the bedroom door, in the dim light of the moon filtering through the window._

_She slept in abandon, her face soft, her delicate features curved into a smile._

_The room smelled softly of fresh pajamas and of her body lotion. She turned softly in her sleep though he had not made a sound in his bare feet._

"_You're home" she said, still dazed by sleep. And opened her arms from him to crawl into._

.

.

The vans brought more and more agents, more CSIs, more media, more people to judge him.

All he needed was a minute of silence.

A minute of silence to remember if he had done everything he could. A minute to regroup. He just needed a goddamned minute.

Because the noise of the bullets, the echoes of the screams, the sirens of the emergency vehicles, the shouts of the vultures of the press were slowly but surely denting his sanity, chipping it away, decibel by decibel.

And Hannah hovered and Internal affairs surrounded him and everyone wanted of piece of him, because when things go wrong, no one cares for a hero. They only want a scape goat.

And he was going to be fed to the vultures as one.

He was pushed and interviewed and analyzed and questioned.

Questioned in an interrogation room.

.

.

_There was only uncomplicated joy. Her body was warm from the bed, from sleep, from her own natural warmth. How could he ever have doubted it?_

_._

_._

The villain of the day had his face. His name.

When internal affairs released him, he had been in the middle of the chaos for more than 10 hours, in the thick of the fray. Shouldering the blame.

No one extended him the courtesy of a single moment to himself.

His head hung in defeat. In shame.

He had gone into the day sure that he was doing the right thing. He was coming out of it with more blood on his hands. All his fault. Though he could not have sat this one out.

Hannah found him coming out of interrogation like a common criminal.

"Seeley"

He looked at his hands, blood staining them as surely as if he had taken the killing shots himself.

"Can we go somewhere?"

"I need to get home now"

"I'd like to thank you."

"Don't worry about it."

"Seeley..."

Some time ago, he had expected to hate her. He didn't. Held even a certain tenderness for her. Maybe he just hadn't loved her enough.

"Do you hate me?"

"No."

"Then come with me. I don't think we're through. I never did. I just think we needed some time to get over that..."

"Hannah... look... I"

"We could... I don't know, go out for a meal... or..."

"I need to get home. Really. Stay safe, OK?"

"Ok..."

Booth walked away. He was nearly out through the door when she grabbed for his arm.

"What if I told you I wanted to try again... maybe be a little less... nomadic..."

.

.

_He slid under the blankets, registering only on an subconscious level how good it felt to have clean sheets against his skin, how good the familiar form of his pillow with the sent of hair on it felt._

_All he was aware of was the silence, the golden, welcoming silence of her smile when she held him to her and everything, absolutely everything of the day faded away, like fog under the sun._

_Holding her was like holding a small ray of sun. Maybe the whole star._

_._

_._

That was so not a conversation that he needed to have. Along with the tenderness, there was still hurt. You don't really choose what you feel. If she'd told him this back then, back when he was angry, he might have said something... been cruel. He had needed to spread the pain. And Bones had been there to take more than her fair share.

His hand ran through Hannah's arm.

You cannot choose how you feel, but can choose how to act on your feelings.

"Look, it's OK, alright? I was angry. Not anymore. Now I'm just tired. Go home, OK. Or wherever you're staying."  
"Did I miss my moment, Seeley?"

.

.

_He slid into her arms. For some reason, his heart was thumping a mad beat in his chest. He was home. _

_Her hand slid over the bandage on his shoulder. There were no questions, just her hand smoothing over the wound, healing._

_._

_._

He thought for a bit. Had she missed her moment?

And then he smiled.  
"No. It just... it was never yours, I think. Stay safe, OK?"

.

.

He drove home. The noise of the day still ringing in his ears, the accusations still burning, the bitterness still churning in his stomach.

But when he put his key to the lock, when he stepped out of his shoes and got rid of the torn bloodied shirt, when he crawled into bed and Bones opened her arms to him, it all dissipated.

There was just an easy silence, a quietness.

.

.

_His hands were full of blood. He could not touch her with those unclean hands._

_People had died because and it was his fault. He shouldn't touch her._

_But she took his hands and kissed them. _

"_You did all you could. You were very brave."_

_When his hand found her rounded belly and their daughter moved under his hand, when her warmth pushed at the cold of the night, there was silence at last. _

"_They took my badge, Bones, they took my gun."_

_He closed his eyes for a fraction, shame still burning._

"_Is Hannah OK?"_

_He touched his forehead to hers._

"_Yes"_

"_Then the rest is going to be fine."_

_His hand touched her cheek. He was well aware of how fortunate he was. She was his sanctuary from the world._

"_We'll get it back, Booth. I promise"_

_Brennan sealed her promise with a kiss. A small, helpless kiss. _

_Against him, their baby swayed gently._

_He used to pray when he was a little boy. He used to pray for the same things over and over again. For mom to be strong, for dad to be less accurate, for Jarred to behave, for himself not to be noticed. For the applecart not to be upset._

_Lately, he gave thanks every night. Thanks for Bones' warm body next to him, thanks for this peace, for this quiet safety they built for each other every day._

_Her hand on his chest, his hand on her waist, their mouths together, her foot running a circle on his leg. He sighed, contentment on his breath. _

_Her back arched because her body reacted to his happiness. _

_And he sought out her breast, kissing it gently, suckling until she gasped quietly into his hair._

_Her sounds spurred him on and he pulled her pajama from her, leaving her naked before him._

_He took a moment, because he needed to remember exactly how she looked like tonight, rosy from sleep, her breasts soft and rounded, hardened by desire, her belly a soft mound full of life, her face all light, all acceptance. Her body in bloom._

_There had been a time she blushed when he looked at her like that._

_His body demanded contact. His body missed her as much as he did. Slowly, he laid himself over her, carefully, gently and hiding his face on her neck, he entered her in a fluid motion. _

_Bones took his face in her hands and gave him that unwavering gaze of hers:_

"_It's OK, Booth. It's OK. I love you"_

_And he believed her._

_He moved, gentle, light. He moved with her, inside her, over her. _

_He was one with her until pleasure washed over them._

_He gave thanks to God. He was grateful for her. For them._

_._

_._

_If he never got his badge back, he couldn't get himself to care at that particular moment: his Bones was in his arms, their baby was healthy and they were safe and warm. The world was a place outside._

_Inside there was only peaceful quiet._


	20. Hush little baby

**Author's note: I have a daughter. She's three. The other night we put her to bed after her story and switched of the light. When I went back to check on her, she was singing herself to sleep. She was singing a lullaby I used to sing to her when she was just a wee baby. She was singing the lullaby that inspired this story.**

**So this is my first dedication to my daughter. **

**.**

**Note two: This is a companion piece to Easy Silence of the previous chapter. **

**.**

**Note three: Thank you to MickeyBoggs who betaed this at work.**

**.**

**Much love**

**Jane**

**.**

**.**

Hush little baby don't say a word

Daddy's gonna buy you a mockingbird.

.

And if that mocking bird won't sing

Daddy' gonna buy you a diamond ring.

.

And if that diamond ring turns brass

Daddy's gonna buy you a looking glass.

.

And if that looking glass gets broke

Daddy's gonna buy you a billy goat.

.

And if that billy goat don't pull

Daddy's gonna buy you a cart and bull.

.

And if that cart and bull fall down

You'll still be the sweetest little baby in town.

How do you cope with forever?

How do you deal with forever when some days are just what nightmares are made of?

.

.

When Booth was called, her heart tightened. Hannah.

How do you deal with love when you're just figuring out what it means?

He put his fork down and gave an anxious look.

"I need to go..."

She knew she could not follow him. She knew that their baby had to come first.

"I'll be at the lab. Call me if you need me."

It took him a minute to actually leave. A minute where he hesitated. She wished she knew what he was thinking. She wished she could read him like he read her.

His hand cupped her face. For that minute it took him to leave, his eyes told her in many ways what she needed to know.  
"I'll be home tonight."

.

.

He worked the case. There was nervous energy in his step, an agitated bounce when he walked out of the diner. He worked the case relentlessly. There was no difference, no significant difference to how he always worked any case.

She was the problem. Because they had never talked about Hannah. Things had just happened with them. One day they were partners, the next she knew, she had a positive pregnancy test in her hand. And _presto_ they were a couple. Hannah? She didn't know where she stood about Hannah.

But he called. He called to remind her to have her lunch. He called to remind her to sit for a little. Even though there was evidence to analyze, and a body to learn from. A body that held information to get Hannah back.

He called and he took the time to say _I love you._

But he did not go home that night.

When she gave him her findings, when their team gave him all they could, he put together a team.

And then she wouldn't worry about Hannah. She worried about him because he was out with the SWAT team and he told her _I love you_ in a way she supposed warriors say it in case they do not come back home.

.

.

And when the morning came and found her in her couch, it was all over the news.

People dead, property destroyed. And in the grainy picture, headlines all over the scene, Booth looking stunned and overwhelmed in the middle of the debris of the operation. And Hannah dropping into his arms.

And the image was played and replayed in every single channel.

And Booth did not call.

.

.

The trouble with love is that it makes you vulnerable.

The trouble with loving someone is that there are no guarantees.

The trouble with Bones loving Booth was that they were both survivors. And survivors have issues that never get quite resolved.

He did not call.

And all she could see was Hannah falling into his embrace and how he did not reply when the swarm of reporters asked him if he was happy to have Hannah back.

Did he? Did he have her back?

He did not call.

And the day dripped away slowly.

Until she went home, their home, and tired, got herself to bed. Their bed.

.

.

The trouble with being Bones was that love was only a word until Booth had come along to give it a meaning.

She had no practice to speak of.

.

.

She lay in bed, her doubts for company.

The baby moved, awake now that she needed to sleep.

Her hand moved, gentle circles, over the little foot.

No, doubts were not her only company.

.

.

_Hush little baby, don't say a word_

_Daddy's gonna buy you a mockingbird._

.

.

Her hand soothed the baby. And the baby comforted her.

And Booth was not a rat. He loved her. He had told her so. And he'd be home soon.

He'd be home soon because they were the forever kind of thing. He'd told her so.

.

.

_And if that mockingbird won't sing_

_Daddy's gonna buy you a diamond ring._

_._

_._

She fell asleep. Because the good thing about being Bones and loving Booth is that she took everything he said at face value.

She slept peacefully because he'd be home soon.

.

.

There had been no sound.

He never a made a sound. He walked like a cat, all fluid lines. But she felt him, like she always did.

"You're home," and she smiled because he always kept his promises. And her arms opened to him.

.

.

See, the good thing about having life beat the crap out of you is that you learn to accept and be happy and the good things come barging through your door, knocking you out.

You learn to do better.

.

.

He slid under the covers, that fluid grace of his and he was cool and fresh from the shower and he smelled like her lavender soap. His body fresh and clean leaned into her embrace. His heart thumped against her chest and he breathed her in. She loved that, that dog kind of love he felt for her. He always smelled her. He did that a lot. She did not doubt that he would recognize her by scent alone. That he knew her by heart and would know her moods just by her scent.

Just like she recognized his by sound.

His thumping heat and his ragged breathing. There was something wrong.

Her hand found the bandage on his shoulder. She smoothed it over.

He'd taken a shot. She'd seen him favor that shoulder when Hannah jumped into his arms.

It was just his shoulder.

Just his shoulder.

Shoulder.

Not heart.

But something was wrong. And she knew him by heart too. She'd heard the reports_._

"You did all you could. You were very brave."

And she did not doubt that for a second.

Booth always did the right thing.

His hand went to her belly, wide open, soft on their baby.

His heart stilled and his breathing evened.

"They took my badge, Bones, they took my gun."

.

.

_And if that diamond ring turns brass,_

_Daddy's gonna buy you a looking glass._

.

.

She knew who Booth was without those trinkets. She knew the truth of him. She knew he had his sense of self wrapped around them.

"Is Hannah OK?"

He touched his forehead to hers.

"Yes."

"Then the rest is going to be fine."

Wasn't she the lucky one? She knew the man in her arms. It would be fine. One way or another. And she would not stop until she got him badge and gun back.

"We'll get it back, Booth. I promise."

There was a helplessness in his eyes he only revealed to her.

She kissed him because she did not know how to make it go away. She kissed him giving all of herself to him in that kiss, her hand on his chest, his hand on her waist.

The love they made was a balm for her and for him. Together they made it better.

.

.

_And if that looking glass gets broke_

_Daddy's gonna buy you a billy goat._

_._

_._

Booth slept curled around her. In the small light of the moon peeking through their windows, she saw his face relaxed, softly curved into a sweet smile.

When he slept in her arms, he became the little boy he had never been.

She did not sleep. Their daughter was wide awake and she had his sleep to guard.

When his forehead tensed, she smoothed it over and whispered _It's going to be OK, shh, it's going to be OK._

_._

_._

_And if that billy goat won't pull, _

_Daddy's gonna buy you a cart and bull._

_._

_._

The trouble with being Bones and loving Booth was that she had no point of reference. She had never loved anyone. And no one had ever loved her. Not like this, they hadn't.

When she looked back, through the hazy memories of her twisted childhood, there were only little snippets of goodness.

She didn't know how to love him better.

And she worried about the life they had together. She worried about the day he would figure out that she didn't know.

And she worried about the baby she was carrying because what did she know about being a mother? Researching lullabies in the library did not make her a good mother.

Making easy promises about things turning out OK did not make her a good woman.

But the baby was there and Booth was in her arms.

When his expression closed again, when his heart thumped wildly in his chest again, she knew he was back yesterday again.

Against her own better counsel, she hummed her little lullaby.

"Hush little baby, don't say a word

Daddy's gonna buy you a mocking bird."

The humming became song as Booth relaxed and their daughter quieted.

"And if that mockingbird won't sing

Daddy's gonna buy you a diamond ring"

He held her closer, his nose snuggling against her neck. He slept still.

"And if that diamond ring turns brass,

Daddy's gonna buy you a looking glass"

She sang softly in the quiet of the early morning. No, she did not know much about being in love, about being a mother.

But she had a song that soothed Booth and their baby.

"And if that looking glass gets broke

Daddy's gonna buy you a billy goat"

She remembered sometimes. She remembered her mother singing around the house. Singing her to sleep. She remembered a crystal voice, though the words were still a mystery. She went into the library of the Jeffersonian because she wanted to have a song her daughter would remember even if she were a truly incapable parent, even she went missing or died.

"And if that billy goat won't pull,

Daddy's gonna buy you a cart and bull"

Booth moved softly and she knew he was awake. She knew all his movements, all his noises. She knew him by heart. She stopped singing, embarrassed.

"Don't stop, Bones." His voice was hazy with sleep.

"I woke you up."

"No, you didn't. Don't stop."

But his hand rubbing the small of her back was distracting. His morning breath on her shoulder was inviting and suddenly, her body was awake and she felt it respond to him, fast, in a way that still surprised her even though she had been reacting to his voice ever since the day they met a lifetime ago. Even though she felt heavy and uncoordinated and unsexy.

Her nipples perked up and her core tightened because his hand was doing naughty things to her back. He had learned all her spots so quickly.

She couldn't sing another word if she tried.

"Sing for me, Bones." His voice was raspy and his smile was of the panty-melting variety.

His kiss started on her chin and wondered through her cheekbones and her nasal bridge and her... her forehead, god help her, she had forgotten every anatomy class by the time he kissed her mouth, invading her, slowly but with a certainty of old lovers.

Her legs opened to his pressing thigh.

His fingers sought her heat out, zeroing in on her bundle of nerves and that was it, she just surrendered and shuddered. Sex had become a wondrous activity. And she couldn't get enough of him. She didn't quite know whether it was the hormones or simply that she had wanted him for so long she now wanted to make up for all the wasted time. She just couldn't get enough of him.

Lazily, he raised her leg over his waist and run his fingers up and down her thigh. His mouth did funny things to her ear lobe. She got wet wet wet.

His breath was a pant, but a good kind of pant, no more of last night's panic.

His sinuous body moved under her tigh and there it was, oh yes, this wave of pleasure when he was her entrance, just touching her, just waiting for her. And then he slid in.

"Good morning, Temperance." And the way he whispered her name was such an intimate caress in her ear that she came, she buckled, an uncoordinated wave of muscles grasping him with all her heart.

She couldn't quite catch her breath. So she just rasped _good morning. _Love was not a competition, but just in case, she needed to show him she was not just a weak little thing. In fact, she was energized, vital. And powerful.

So powerful. She disengaged from him. He grumbled. He liked the advantage and the cozy position.

She went on her knees, missing the grace of her movements before her body had grown so wide.

But grace or not, she was hungry for him. She pushed him flat on his back and straddled him.

Free, she just took him in, the satin of the skin, the angles of the bones, the ripples of the muscles, the lines around his eyes and mouth. He was getting older. She knew every little line that had not been there when they met. She loved each one of them individually, because they were their cases, their worries, their heartbreak.

She caressed each one with her fingers, committing each to memory of this perfect moment. They had so many perfect moments.

Her body undulated over him, her hips rotated, her muscles gripped him.

His hands caressed her knees, her hips, her breasts.

"Hush little baby don't say a word

Daddy's gonna buy you a mockingbird"

He took her hands and kissed each palm, adoringly, and then each finger.

And she felt him gather, she felt each of his muscles become tighter and tenser. She heard his breath hitch and become uncoordinated. And she knew he was close. She knew him by heart.

"I love you, Booth."

And that did it for him. It did it for her too, because for some reason seeing his pleasure, seeing his head tilt back and his mouth open in a silent scream always gave her that final push towards fracture, towards pleasure.

.

.

Brennan hummed her lullaby in the kitchen as she sliced peaches. She loved making breakfast. Which was oddly domestic for her.

But today it felt good.  
Maybe this was nesting. All the books she had read talked about it at length, the need to nest, to create an environment around you.

If this was nesting, it was good.

"And if that looking glass gets broke

Daddy's gonna buy you a billy goat.

And if that billy goat won't pull,

Daddy's gonna buy you a cart and bull."

Booth came behind her and stole pieces of peach that he slid into his mouth. His hands grabbed her and pulled her to his chest.

"I like it."  
"The peaches?"

"The lullaby."

"Oh."

"Did your mom sing it to you?"

Did she?

"I'm not sure. I remember her singing, but I don't know what."

"She will." He rubbed her belly.

Brennan smiled that little small smile she had for when she was unsure of something but fervently hoped it to be true.

"Did your mom sing for you?"

"Maybe. I don't know. Maybe in the beginning."

Brennan ate a piece of peach, mostly because she wanted him to continue and didn't want to interrupt.

"I think maybe, yeah. In the beginning. Then she just... you know. She didn't feel like it."

His hands on her were hypnotic.

"Do you think we'd be different if they had been... better?" She bit her lip, nervous. "I mean... do you think we'd be better?"  
"Are you worried?"

"About how I will do this?" Her hand stayed on his on her belly. "Yeah."

"I do alright with Parker."

"He couldn't ask for a better father."

"Do you know the end of that lullaby of yours?"

"Yes."

"Sing it"

"Booth..."  
"Sing it, Bones."

"And if that cart and bull fall down

You'll still be the sweetest little baby in town."

He turned her around, slowly, as if dancing."

"There you go. We try. We keep on trying." Her head fell into his shoulder and his arms went around her. "And if that cart and bull fall down

You'll still be the sweetest little baby in town."

His heart beat steady, strong, in her ear. His chest rumbled softly when he sang so off key in her ear.

"I'm scared too, sometimes, alright? No one knows if they'll do OK. And everybody worries how their kids will turn out. We try, Bones. And if we don't do it perfectly at first, we will do better after. Kids are resilient. We both know that. You know what? Pops told me he was scared when Jared and I moved in with him. Because he didn't do very well with my dad, you know? But he did OK. Sometimes, more than OK. But I never knew he was scared. To me, he was my hero, you know?"

"_And if that cart and bull fall down_

_You'll still be the sweetest little baby in town." _

_The good thing about Bones loving Booth was this belief system:he believed the best about her. And she took it at face value._

"Yeah... to me you always were my hero..."


End file.
